Remarks at Dalai Lama Display Opening in Linderman Library – October 14, 2008
Location: Linderman Rotunda
Dr. Lloyd Steffen, Professor of Religion Studies, University Chaplain
I am pleased to be here today, pleased to see the display, and pleased to acknowledge once again the significant help that the staff at Linderman Library has given to all of the efforts made by Lehigh University in regards to the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to our campus in July of this year.
What a remarkable event that visits was. Two years in the planning, Lehigh University worked alongside the Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center and their directors Joshua and Diana Cutler, along with the Office of Tibet in New York City, the State Department, and a variety of other people. We went through a year of preparation that brought to campus major Tibetan Buddhist scholars, the President of America's only Buddhist inspired university. We heard from some of our own faculty who have been working in Tibet, some for years. We had Tibetan meals in the dining halls, new courses in the curriculum, film showings, an orientation common book reading of the Dalai Lama's autobiography, photography and art displays. And standing here, I am reminded that several Tibetan Buddhist monks spent a week in Linderman a year ago this month creating an extraordinarily beautiful Mandela—a spiritually disciplined construction effort presenting the home of the Buddha. This was constructed right here in this rotunda, much to the delight of those who saw it come to life, then pass away in the flow of waters and time.
Linderman opened itself in a most hospitable way, our librarians contributing not only to the Mandela effort, but preparing bibliography of extant resources on Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama for the library and for the Dalai Lama web sites; they connected as well with the local Bethlehem Area Public Library to put on a series of talks related to the Dalai Lama's teachings, doing so in hopes of involving the wider community. That we remember the visit of the Dalai Lama to campus here in Linderman is special and appropriate—all of us who were involved in planning the visit are grateful to the library staff for all the hard work and dedication they showed.
So the Dalai Lama came, he taught, and he conquered. For five and one half days he taught a rapt audience in Stabler the wisdom of the Tibetan Buddhist way as laid out in Tsong Kha-Pa’s sacred text, The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment—Lam Rim Chen Mo. And he delivered a public lecture for the edification of the many Lehigh University faculty, staff and students in attendance, along with many of our neighbors, not only in the Lehigh Valley but from other areas of the country and even the world.
And he did present a challenge. Responding to a question about American values, he said something like "You are perhaps too concerned with competition." We have in recent days seen how competition gone mad can lead to global financial upheaval, how competition can be spurred on by greed and bizarre, arcane practices many of us never knew—selling short, or the role of derivatives that require highly specialized knowledge at odds with simple justice and honest brokering. Our current crisis could be seen perhaps as a perfect metaphor for competition gone frenzied and out of control.
And even today I doubt we are able to hear his criticism that perhaps addresses the spiritual and moral problem behind the losses and gains, the foreclosures, the looming unemployment, the anxiety and uncertainty—perhaps the remark was too simple, and by being too much to the point of a values orientation, it presented too much of a challenge to the way we live and what we value to even hear it or take it seriously. But perhaps we should wonder: what would life be like if cooperation were to fill every space in our lives where competition now holds court? We may be in the process of finding out, since it is now cooperation and the idea of pulling together that has emerged as a necessary fall back position—the only course of action that seemed to hold any hope for rectifying matters and moving us beyond the current crisis.
We have moved on. Another school year has begun, and we see in the distance the conclusion of another semester, another year—a year that saw Lehigh University the host of a spiritual leader whose message to the world is cooperation, dialogue, peace and compassion.
My own feeling is that this was an event of great moment for our community—a moment of teaching and learning, of acknowledging that we are in need of wisdom, and that wisdom is a spiritual attainment—and to acquire it we need to be listening to spiritual leaders if we are fortunate enough to find them. The Dalai Lama is such a leader, and his touch of grace and good humor affected many people in positive ways.
And I am reminded in this moment of all the people who helped plan for this visit. For planning included many good Lehigh citizens cooperating with the Tibetan Learning Center and with one another: from the Provost’s and President’s Offices, from the bookstore, from the campus police, from dining services, from facilities services, from Stabler, from residential services, community relations, from communications and from library technical services—over 300 people in all I am told—and yes, from our librarians. And it is not that there were not bumps and sometimes a miscommunication to deal with, but this intensive preparation and planning was undertaken in a way that was, I believe, marked by respect for the message of the Dalai Lama himself—it was undertaken by people who respected one another, who found ways to work together, who did so with humor and good cheer, who came to enjoy the work and the contact with others they do not typically see in the course of their work lives here at Lehigh—and we worked to make something significant happen.
I think in this moment, as we mark the opening of this display, we should as a community extend to one another a thank you for work well done. This Lehigh University community deserves a thank you for all the good work, yes, but even more so for all the good will that marked this event. We are grateful for the beauty that appeared to us on the stage at Stabler as well as in this rotunda – once a Mandela construction site; we are grateful this day for the learning opportunity created by this visit, for the learning that that took place, and for the wisdom we may have glimpsed but are reminded we must still seek.
_____________________________
Living the Questions
"Faith and Values" Column, The Morning Call, Saturday, September 13, 2008: D7.
By Lloyd Steffen
Given that questioning is an activity we often associate with science or philosophy, we might expect a truly philosophical scientist like Albert Einstein to have something to say about question asking; and so he does: "If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question I could solve the problem in less than five minutes."
Getting the question right is hard work—that is Einstein's point, and question asking is critical for advancing knowledge and achieving understanding. We ask questions when we are trying to understand things we don't know or understand. And although we can accept that philosophers and scientists must be about the business of formulating questions, many of us do not typically think of the spiritual life as urging people to focus primarily on this activity of questioning. Some might even go so far as to say that the spiritual life is where we finally put an end to the anxiety created by not knowing, so that religion functions to provide authoritative answers that put our questions to rest. Many religious people, and their observers, think that religion is about answers, not questions, and that faith bestows a wonderful gift that cannot be acquired by constant question asking—certainty. In the face of certainty, questioning may seem subversive, even an impiety—for if the spiritual life involves mystery and not knowing, we must take things on faith and let the questions cease.
I myself very much agree with those who say “It’s all a mystery,” but I am not so quick to belittle questioning as a central aspect of what it means to be spiritually alive and engaged. The activity of questioning and the willingness to engage in the activity may be more important than any particular question that is asked or any answer that is given. For questioning is about expressing a desire to learn—it always puts the questioner into a learning posture, which is necessarily open and humbling since a question is also a confession of not knowing, not understanding—yet wanting to.
Einstein's remark reminds us that learning to ask questions may really be what learning is all about, and that any system of education that does not emphasize learning through questioning is to be pitied. A great deal of our American educational system is directed towards rewarding "right answer" thinking, symbolized perhaps by the one correct answer exam question. Learning based on conversation and dialogue around questions that open out and reach beyond informational tidbits and "true/false" thinking has a hard time making a meaningful impact in a technologically driven learning environment focused on problem-fixing.
Authors Eric Vogt, Juanita Brown and David Isaacs, in their article "The Art of Powerful Questions," argue that America is enmeshed in a culture that is actually averse to the question, and that aversion, they write, is "linked to an emphasis on finding quick fixes and an attachment to black/white, either/or thinking." They note, by contrast, the way in which organizations can sometime place a high value on questioning. They point to some German corporations, like Daimler, Bayer and Siemens, that employ a "Director of Fundamental Questions" or Grundsatzfragen. Some large corporations even have entire departments dedicated to thinking about what questions should be asked within the community around all kinds of different activities, from production to marketing to human resource administration. The authors note that when American companies acquire a German company, the Department of Fundamental Questions is usually among the first to be eliminated.
Questioning exposes hidden assumptions, motivates fresh thinking and helps to stimulate creativity by opening up new possibilities for conversation and learning. While it would be reasonable to hope that our educational systems would direct efforts toward helping students become skillful at the activity of question asking, going after the whys, hows and whats and not so much at the "Yes/no" and "true/false," should we not encourage this in the spiritual life as well?
In "Letters to a Young Poet," the great German poet, Rainer Rilke, offered this advice: ". . . try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
The idea of "living the questions" points to how questioning can become central to the spiritual life. It is not that answers are not available to the great spiritual questions like, "Who am I?", "What is God like?" "What is my purpose?" "How do I find—make—meaning?," but that questions too are important and to be valued. Jesus once asked his followers, "What do you want me to do for you?" (Luke 18.41), and many answer even today with a laundry list of things he can do, including bringing them happiness, wealth, health and every good thing. But if one lives that question, as I suspect Jesus may have lived it, it might be that Jesus was not looking for answers but for another sympathetic soul, perhaps even another fellow questioner, one willing to reply, "No, what can I do for you?"
Questions—your questions, my questions, our questions, whatever they happen to be—must be allowed to live and breathe. They must come up out of our deepest longings for connectedness to others, and they must express our deepest cares and concerns. We must not stifle them or shoo them away as nagging nuisances, but instead welcome them, allow them to take shape, and dwell with them even as they unsettle us. Living the questions means that we can and should live, as the poet said, toward answers. Disciplining ourselves to live the questions leads us to more and better and deeper questions that inevitably take us into the lives of others, where we come to see and appreciate their questions even more deeply than our own.
Lloyd Steffen is University Chaplain and Professor of Religion Studies at Lehigh University
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Why the Dalai Lama Matters
The Morning Call, Wednesday, July 9, 2008: A 13. (web published several places internationally, (e.g. http://www.tibet.ca/en/newsroom/wtn/3097, http://temp.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=21906&t=1&c=4)
Lloyd Steffen
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, visits the Lehigh Valley this month. Why all the excitement? Why is the Dalai Lama so important?
One thing everyone knows about the Dalai Lama is that he is famous. His face and cheery smile are known the world over. He is, in fact, an iconic figure whose status as a bona fide "celebrity" was confirmed when a Dalai Lama 'paper doll' cut-out book was published not long ago. But why does he command so much attention? Does he not come out of a religious tradition—Tibetan Buddhism—unfamiliar to many Americans? And the conflict between Tibet and China that has put the Dalai Lama in the news lately—does that not involve a regional history over issues that for most of us are simply obscure? Why is the Dalai Lama thought to be important? Fair question.
To answer the question requires just a little “Who’s Who in the World” background. The title "Dalai Lama" is a Mongolian and Tibetan hybrid term that literally means "ocean teacher." The Dalai Lama is believed by Tibetan Buddhists to be the reincarnation of the Buddha (or bodhisattva) of Compassion. He is believed to possess a wisdom as deep as the ocean, and the title identifies its holder as the highest spiritual authority in Tibetan Buddhism. The current Dalai Lama, born in 1935, was recognized as a living Buddha when only three years old. He began monastic training at the age of six, completed doctoral studies in Buddhist philosophy at the age of 25, and was acknowledged as the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people. In 1950, when only 15 years old, he was named head of the Tibetan state.
After the success of the communist revolution in China, Mao Zedong tried to unite Tibet with the People’s Republic of China, the ostensible purpose being to modernize Tibet. Chinese military forces invaded Tibet, and the incursion was met with resistance and bloodshed. With his life threatened and with efforts to bring peace to his homeland having failed, the Dalai Lama was forced into exile. In 1959 he crossed the Himalayas and took up residence in Dharamsala, India where he has lived ever since. He is known the world over today for his teachings and writings on spirituality, ethics, human rights and nonviolence, and the numerous awards he has received in recognition of his efforts to promote justice and resolve the Tibetan situation nonviolently include the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.
There have been many spiritual leaders, many different heads of state, even other exiled heads of state, and quite a few Nobel Peace Prize winners—so why is this man, who describes himself always as “a simple monk,” important? Let me suggest three reasons.
First of all, the Dalai is an extraordinary teacher and a gifted communicator. His fame derives from his efforts to stay in constant communication. He is a New York Times best selling author many times over, able to reach wide audiences; he is a lecturer to hundreds of thousands of people across the globe—a true global citizen; and he is the subject of many films and documentaries, including Martin Scorsese's bio-pic, Kundun. The Dalai Lama has succeeded in translating central ideas from his Buddhist tradition to people in a way—and through all kinds of media—that speaks to their common spiritual needs and longings, regardless of whether they are Buddhist or even religious at all. But he has also taught Buddhism along the way. Much of what many people know about Buddhism comes from their encounter with the Dalai Lama, who has connected with people as only great teachers can, embodying in his life and words a message that speaks to the great questions about life and its meaning.
Secondly, the Dalai Lama is important because of the specifics of his message. The Dalai Lama reminds us that we are all in the same boat, that suffering is our common condition. He humbly suggests that we are responsible for one another, and that geographic boundaries should be no impediment to our sense of responsibility. We are all connected. And we all want the same thing out of life—we want happiness. His teaching, then, is designed to illuminate the pathways that might get us to happiness. Learn patience. Show tolerance. Seek wisdom. Forgive. Make love your aim as well as your mode of operation. Offer compassion and help those who are in need. Calm yourselves and seek peace within—meditate. Bring peace to the world through a life of care and empathy. Shun violence and hatred. Channel anger and overcome fear. Build your life around these values, rejecting the excesses of materialism and the temptations to resolve conflict by resorting to violence. Make kindness your ethic. You cannot be too kind.
These are messages that can be found many places, including the religion of Christianity. What is unusual about the Dalai Lama as teacher is that he has extracted these messages from theological trappings and offered them as wise counsel and living directives to those seeking spiritual enlightenment. This is radical business and the kind of teaching that many Christians find difficult, since in many versions of Christianity the message about what is required to do is subordinated to requirements about belief. The Dalai Lama dissociates the two—he focuses on the doing, on the requirements of peaceful living and wisdom seeking. He does not force his Tibetan beliefs on those outside his tradition—when people tell him they don't accept reincarnation he laughs and says, "How could you? How is that a part of your life?'
And this leads to a third consideration. The Dalai Lama is important because the challenge of his message is this: "Stop doing business as usual." The idea that we can find peace through force of arms or happiness through acquisition is illusory. He urges people to rethink what they want and how to get what they want, and with so much misery and unhappiness in the world, the way to happiness will not come from doing things as we are used to doing them. Reprioritize and revalue, he seems to be saying. Emphasize dialogue, not confrontation. Think about cooperation rather than competition. Think about advancing the interests of others as much as you do advancing your own. Make every encounter with another person the greeting of a new friend. And when you are told this is impractical, remind your skeptic that if we do not reshift to an alternative set of values and refocus our concern to include all others, even the well-being of the planet itself, we imperil our very existence.
The Dalai Lama relates this message from his Buddhist sources—it is not an alien message for me as a Christian. What I celebrate is that the Dalai Lama has found a way to make this message heard today, even if it is through massive media exposure and paper doll cut out books. The message goes to the hope for human happiness. The message is that business as usual is a well doomed to run dry, and alternative values, an alternative spirituality, will be required to energize peaceful and meaningful life in the days ahead. The Dalai Lama offers an alternative path away form the present unhappiness; he emphasizes a way of living that challenges what most of us value and how most of us live—and that, for me, is why the Dalai Lama stands in a long line of great spiritual teachers; that for me is why the Dalai Lama is so important.
Lloyd Steffen is Professor of Religion Studies and Chaplain at Lehigh University.
__________________________________
Ten years ago, within the space of a week, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa both died.
While the 10th anniversary of the death of the princess was marked with various remembrances in the media and even memorial services in Great Britain, that same anniversary for the Saint of the Gutter, Mother Teresa, went mostly unnoticed.
Mother Teresa's name might not have arisen at all, except for a book that was being published that brought Mother Teresa back to the front page. The book, ''Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light,'' a collection of previously unknown letters written to her superiors and confessors over a 66 year period, revealed something so unexpected as to be sensational.
Mother Teresa disclosed a long experience of lonely spiritual emptiness, a darkness of soul in which the presence of God was nowhere to be found. Yes, this is the same Mother Teresa acknowledged by so many as a true saint, the Mother Teresa known the world over for her simple but profound faith, the Mother Teresa who in the spirit of Christ and with a joyful heart ministered to the poorest of Calcutta's poor.
The letters in ''Come Be My Light,'' however, reveal that this woman so widely honored for her deep faith was a tortured soul.
According to the letters, she had been for 50 years of her life racked with doubts and spiritual turmoil, what a recent Time magazine feature cover story would describe as her ''deep and abiding spiritual pain.''
Mother Teresa was for many years the most admired woman in the world, and for good reason. Sometimes in my classes, when I needed to grab onto an exemplar of noble, saintly behavior, I would invoke Mother Teresa's name as if by that invocation I could rest my case that selfless individuals --saints -- are among us.
I disagreed with Mother Teresa's opposition to birth control and reproductive choice and had no feel for her authoritarian leadership style, but Mother Teresa put her faith into action. She concerned herself with the material well-being of those she served, being with people when they died and making her order, the Missionaries of Charity, a witness not only to the ministry of service but to the injustice of a world where so many people were reduced to deep material want. She donated her entire Nobel Peace Prize award to the poor of India. Who could not admire this? Who could not see in her a saint?
Mother Teresa has been beatified by the Roman Catholic Church and is on the way to formal sainthood, but most people have for a long time reckoned her a saint as we understand saints in ordinary ways. But saints also present a problem. At the very moment they show us what we could be, they seem to reassure us that we are not like them -- and cannot be. They possess gifts and capabilities beyond ours. And because we are not like them, we are relieved of any obligation to try to be like them -- they present an unrealistic, unrealizable spiritual or moral perfection.
So identifying saints has become a way to take ourselves off the hook: what the saint did we cannot do, and although we admire the saint, because the saint is unlike ourselves -- that is why they are saints and we are not -- we do not have to feel that we need aspire in our own lives to such acts of spiritual daring or selflessness as we see exemplified in their lives. Our easy assumption that Mother Teresa was a saint, a spiritual ideal unattainable by the rest of us, is about to undergo revision. With the publication of Mother Teresa's letters, readers will encounter a woman of high religious dedication who is also besieged with doubt and tormented with an experience of the absence of God.
She will express utter loneliness and the feeling that she is abandoned in a spiritual desert. Her interior life, once assumed to be ideal and perfect, is exposed, and suddenly she is not an imaginary representation of something none of us can be -- she is one of us and she is returned to a spiritual life many of us find recognizable and familiar.
Some people have been upset that Mother Teresa expressed doubts about God; others have wondered about how these revelations will affect her canonization. The reality is that even -- especially -- people eventually recognized by religious authority as saints have almost to a person experienced doubts and the deep and abiding spiritual pain expressed by Mother Teresa. Even Jesus had his Gethsemane.
For saints experience spiritual dryness and even the sense of abandonment. Ordinary people do as well. There are rhythms in the spiritual life, times when all is not connected and the sense of absence dominates. And then there are experiences that can affect the spiritual equilibrium. If Mother Teresa once looked like a saint to me, she now looks very human and perhaps is more to be appreciated because of that. She is now detached from the untouchability of sainthood--which in a paradoxical way makes her even more like a saint, since saints commonly suffer such things in their lives as she did.
Readers of ''Come Be My Light'' are saying that it will become one of the great spiritual autobiographies. Mother Teresa had the gift of faith, not the gift of belief. She never walked away from her calling or ceased her work or stopped trusting -- and trust, not belief, is the heart of faith.
Lloyd Steffen is university chaplain and professor of religion studies at Lehigh University.
___________________________________
Rethinking Suffering
by Lloyd Steffen
Published in Morning Call, May 20, 2007
An important way to gain insight into one’s own religion is to study faith traditions not one’s own. I have come to think hard and critically about my own Christian values as a result of having studied Buddhism, especially around an issue no one thinks trivial: suffering.
Buddhism and Christianity both take suffering seriously. In Buddhism, suffering is the first of Four Noble Truths: “All existence is suffering,” it goes. That does not mean that all of life is a continued experience of pain, as if every moment loved ones are dying, open sores are everywhere on the body, or hunger or thirst are constant and unrelieved. As a Buddhist once explained it to me, this idea about suffering is like sitting on an old wooden ox-drawn cart moving down a rutted dirt road. One of the wheels is out of round, so there is an ever-recurring bumpiness and unsettledness to the ride. It is hard to rest, hard to enjoy the ride, and hard to take one’s mind off of the situation. The rider’s consciousness becomes focused on a desire for a smooth ride and relief from the unpleasantness, which may not be too bad if one is up for it, but may be horrible if one is not. This is suffering—and that is a metaphor for our existence.
Buddhism then goes on to say that the suffering is caused not so much by the bumpy ride but by the desire to be somewhere else, and that what is needed is to get beyond this craving to flee into some other reality. Buddhism then turns moral and says that by following a path of right conduct, right speech, right vocation—an Eightfold path before the teaching is done—the suffering can end.
So what I learn from Buddhism is that suffering is an important and even foundational condition of our lives, but I also learn this unmistakable yet simple insight: suffering is not a good thing. In fact, the next move is to acknowledge that there are things we can and should do to alleviate it. The reason Buddhism emphasizes compassion is because compassionate people realize beyond their own suffering that others are suffering too, and that fills the heart with sympathy and a willingness to help others come to a place where suffering is overcome.
I like this understanding and think it not only rational, but wonderful as a religious perspective giving rise to an ethic of non-injury and attentiveness to others. When as a Christian I think about the stories I know of Jesus, I think this view conforms to what Jesus taught, since Jesus appears in the Scriptures as one concerned for the suffering of others. Biblical scholars are quite willing to say we cannot be sure of many things concerning the actual historical life of Jesus, but one thing they do seem to agree on is this: Jesus was a healer—there is so much attention to this aspect of his life and work that there is every reason to believe healing affliction and addressing suffering were defining aspects of his ministry. Whatever Jesus believed about God, somehow it expressed itself in an ethic of sympathy and compassion for others—it was a way of addressing suffering, and alleviating it by acts and a presence of healing.
That is Jesus—healer. Now we come to Christians, those who follow Jesus and his teaching, and this is where things get difficult. Many Christians, it seems to me, have ideas about suffering that do not grasp suffering as a bad thing or set us to work to relieve it in others. In fact, there are parts of the Jesus story that have led this Christian tradition that is my own to valorize suffering—that is, to make it actually a good thing, something we should honor and hold up as good.
We can look to the story of the Passion of Jesus, even Mel Gibson’s film by that name. Many Christians were moved by that gory film, and it was because they believe that the suffering Jesus underwent was something God needed to have as expiation for human sin, so by those bloody wounds we are healed, saved, restored to God.
Here’s what I think. That suffering was terrible and cannot be justified. Even though I have no doubt that Jesus was guilty of the crime of sedition for which he was executed—he did not condone the cruelty of the crushing Roman empire and all it did to harm people—not only did he not deserve that punishment: no one does, not any one of those three Good Friday offenders. But Christians have made that terrible suffering of Jesus a good thing because they have theologies where that suffering leads to their salvation. No wonder so many Christians support the death penalty—how bad can it be if it was through that means I am saved? In my view, Jesus’ suffering should lead us to say, “We failed him then, God could not possibly have wanted this, and we must work in this world so that what happened to him never happens again—to anyone.” If we ask, “What would Jesus think?” I actually believe he would agree with that.
And the idea of valorizing suffering—making it a good thing—appears in some Christian approaches to medical care. There are hospitals affiliated with Christian denominations that are guided by theological ideas that wind up inflicting, rather than alleviating suffering. Therapeutic abortions to save a woman’s life have been denied at some religiously affiliated hospitals. Other facilities have refused to give emergency contraception to rape victims because of theological teachings opposing contraception. And in one situation I know of a woman was denied an experimental treatment because it required contraception due to possible fetal injury if the woman became pregnant, but the hospital where the doctor worked would not allow the contraception, so the woman was denied a possibly life-saving treatment.
These actions cause suffering. It is a short step from thinking suffering is a good thing to actually causing suffering in others. And if we who are Christian were to ask “What would Jesus do?” can we really think Jesus would refuse a rape victim access to the kind of help that would alleviate her suffering—as if Jesus would assert some theological belief as more important than alleviating the horrible suffering of a rape victim for whom a pregnancy would simply make the suffering worse?
The religious life is so interesting because we are continually trying to figure out what it means to be spiritually attuned to truths bigger than the little ones that keep us comfortable and in the illusion that suffering is God’s to heal, not ours. If Jesus is any guide, the suffering of others is our responsibility. And we need to start thinking about this in different ways theologically: that if I let the suffering of others pass me by, if I assume it is someone else’s responsibility, then it is not only the other person hurt by my action or inaction—it is God. Perhaps as we ponder suffering, we shall come to see that God does not want suffering, does not enjoy it or require it or offer it as a “gift,” but wants only to alleviate it—and is depending on us to do it. And when we fail, and even use God as a reason for inflicting even more suffering, the pain that is caused reaches into the very heart of God.
Lloyd Steffen is University Chaplain and Professor of Religion Studies at Lehigh University. He can be reached at LHS1@lehigh.edu.
______________________________________________________________________
Remarks at Dedication of Linderman Library - May 17, 2007
Lloyd Steffen
In these days of information technologies built on the electronic wizardry of high performance computing, high-speed internet and CD rom collections of once inaccessible research materials, we are constantly reminded that a library is about more than books. It is about more than stone walls and new shelves and beautiful stained glass windows and even wireless connectivity—but it is even about more than books.
But having said that, let’s not forget that in some essential, defining way, this place is about books—and what every book is and hopes to become. For on the shelves housed in this temple of learning are hundred of thousands of conversation partners anticipating a hoped-for footfall, awaiting the catch of an eye, the reach of a hand, the sudden stretch of the spine and the deep breath of the opening of pages—and then, the exposure of thought and desire, passion and understanding, and even love as the book is given a chance to speak, even to commune. So this library is about more than books, but it is about books; and even more than that--it is about conversation partners. And all who come here as students and scholars and teachers, and all who work here, are in the business of arranging conversations.
Linderman now opens its contents, like a book itself, to show the world who we are and what we value. Now refurbished, rebuilt, restructured and reconfigured, air conditioned, electronically up to date, this library is now beautifully restored to its long standing purpose on this campus—to aid and encourage knowledge-seeking on the part of those who would be the servants and interpreters of nature—meaning not only the world external but all that is human.
If these books here are conversation partners, to be found here are many of the wisest sages of the ages. But we must also be honest—and perhaps this next thought is a distinctive faculty contribution to this occasion—for on these shelves are errors beyond counting and so many words that are mistaken, wrongheaded and even foolish that one would search in vain, I suspect, to find in this shelter of thought one book in which everything written is true. Truth eludes, even as the lure of wisdom persists, even prevails. And we acknowledge this even though many faculty at Lehigh have contributed their thoughts and insights to books shelved in this and in other libraries because of that insatiable desire to contribute to the conversation, to the learning. So have we contributed to the mistakes, even the folly? Of course. But we take heart—even Plato, who banished the poets, could get it wrong.
The faculty at Lehigh university, always eager to engage in conversation, that noblest of human pursuits, expresses gratitude to the benefactors and to all in the university who have created out of a landmark of tradition a new, revitalized conversation space. For faculty this will be a welcoming work space where attentive ears hear the call to move along, to think the next thought, to allow the imagination to fire through the energetic exchange of ideas and sharing of points of view, whether in the closed rooms of the classes or in the silence of the reading room. And this facility, now open and working again, will continue to reflect who we are and what we value even as it expresses a dream, which I hope as a faculty member I can say on behalf of my colleagues—is a dream for understanding, peaceful encounter with others, respectful disagreement, and above all a hope for wisdom.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Opening Remarks, Noon-time Service of Prayer and Remembrance at Packer Memorial Church, concerning Events at Virginia Tech University
April 17, 2007
Rev. Dr. Lloyd Steffen
University Chaplain, Lehigh University
The terrible news that came out of Blacksburg, Virginia yesterday has shocked a nation; and for all of us who live and work and study in colleges and universities, this news has brought with it a deep sense of violation. For our institutions of higher learning are among the most important symbols of what a free and open society should be—for in these places, we pursue knowledge and we share common values; we do not say this enough, but among those values is a deep and abiding dedication to peace and non-violence, without which we could not be free or open; we could not go about the business of leaning and teaching.
Yesterday, we witnessed how on another campus that context of peace was violently disturbed; and even all these miles away from Blacksburg, we experienced here, as has every other college and university in the nation, how vulnerable those of in this setting can be. We should, I think, be mindful that a free and open society is always vulnerable to those who would tear at the fabric of peace out of confusion, or hatred, or misplaced anger, or with some profound dislocation of madness. We can be prudent and do many things to protect the peace of a community, but incidents like yesterday remind us that an individual who wants to hurt and kill others and die in the effort may very well succeed in doing so, since that particular scenario is hard to predict and even harder to prevent—and were this not such a difficult moment we might even remind ourselves that events like yesterday are rare because, in fact, we are able, in many situations, to help people and relieve the stress of the demons that attack sanity and thus threaten the safety of others.
Because of our vulnerability, a vulnerability created by the fact that we choose to live together not in defensiveness against the outsider, but in peace and in accordance with the values of inclusion and difference, we may at this moment be tempted to give over to fear. I hope we do not give into that temptation. Fear is a terrible dynamic that if unloosed creates suspicion, barriers, and a shifting of values away from openness and freedom. Our university communities must resist giving into fear even as we continue to emphasize the prudence and caution that all members of our community must continue to exercise for personal safety. But as I say, yesterday was the kind of event it is hard to predict, harder to prevent for one willing to die to do what that gunman did.
We do not yet know what may have motivated a Senior English major at Virginia Tech to open fire on students and beset the Virginia Tech campus yesterday with mayhem. We do not know all that happened as university officials tried to respond to and contain a shocking situation in the early morning that compounded exponentially by late morning, but I hope we shall keep this in mind: we are always looking for someone to blame when these things happen—that is natural, I suppose, because in the face of such outlandish absurdity and chaos, we want to blame someone, for that is a way we can control our own sense of vulnerability. So blaming will go on, a sign of our own coming to terms with a need to make sense out of the senseless. It takes real courage to face the poet’s truth, a truth Jim Cohn has put this way: “sometimes the threads have no weave.”
We do not have the weave, only threads, and we need in this moment to be reflective and to understand that in a moment of crisis, information is sometimes sparse, there is no weave, no pattern, and decisions are made in contexts where all kinds of things are not known, and timing is everything—though in the moment we do not even know that. There is much we do not know and much we shall never know, but we must not let our desire to control this event by understanding the details of it obscure the fact that something terrible happened yesterday, and that how it happened may have simply been unpreventable, for someone was willing to die to do what happened, and that is hard to predict, and even harder to prevent.
What we do know about yesterday—of this there is no lack of information—is that there was a terrible loss of life on the campus of Virginia Tech University, and for that our hearts here at Lehigh are grieved. We here at Lehigh University, in this place, extend our condolences to all the families and friends of those who were killed and wounded yesterday in Virginia; and we gather to hold in prayer those so deeply hurt by the attack yesterday. We know that there are people in our community who know students and faculty there, who know professional colleagues, who know the campus and have friends there. Paul Torgerson, class of 1953 here at Lehigh, is a former President at Virginia Tech, and a 1994 honorary degree recipient at Lehigh—there are probably many connections between our institutions some of which you know even if the rest of us do not. For those affected by a personal loss of a friend or colleague, our hearts go out to you. We hold you today in prayer, and offer you our hand in hope of healing.
Father Killian and I shall offer an opening prayer for this time together; then the podium here is open for any who would like to share a thought or prayer. We gather in silence, and you are invited to meditate or pray in silence or share with others a thought or prayer as you will.
PRAYER:
God of peace, God of comforting love: We find ourselves gathered here today in the midst of confusion over the frailty of our condition. We turn our thoughts to friends and colleagues, faculty and students and staff at Virginia Tech University, and extend to them our deepest sympathies over an experience of unimaginable loss. We ask that we might join your spirit of embracing compassion in extending our love as well to those recovering from wounds, to the families of victims, to the friends of those killed and wounded, to those who are offering medical assistance and counseling help, to those wounded in body and spirit so that they might be healed by your grace of hope and understanding.
We give thanks that the Blacksburg community afflicted by so much pain is resilient in hope—we give thanks that in a time of crisis, heroes arose to help and sacrifice and make pathways to safety possible for many. We would ask that the spirit of peace overcome the desire for recrimination; and that among those to whom we extend our sympathy is the family of Cho Seung-Hui whose suffering is every bit as great as any other in the experience of loss. We know the threads do not sometimes make a weave, and we ask that you be with all those suffering the pain of loss in holding them in your comfort, your peace, your fabric of faith, the weave of which we can see only dimly.
We ask blessing on your gathered people heartbroken by loss, that you might be with all of us, to comfort us, to hold us as we hold the threads that sometimes do not make a weave.
AMEN
___________________________________
Remarks: Parent Weekend, November 5, 2006 (Packer Memorial Church)
"Religious Diversity on Campus: A Problem in Need of Attention"
By Lloyd Steffen, Lehigh University
I was recently asked by someone curious about the higher education world what is the big issue of concern at my campus? I had to pause for a moment to consider the usual suspects—careerism, sports, social life, politics; and then I said something that surprised even me. “Diversity.”
A campus-wide discussion about diversity is currently underway atLehigh. It was prompted in part by an admissions profile two years ago that included less than two dozen African-Americans entering the first year class. The small number exposed the uncomfortable reality that we were not doing enough to make our academic and social life offerings attractive enough to matriculate most of the African American students who had been offered admission. The revelation about this admissions problem embarrassed the entire community. It also provoked worried and widespread conversation—and calls for action. Students with faculty support initiated a movement which they called “The Movement,” the purpose of which was to address diversity issues and strategize about action with the administration. “The Movement” is ongoing today; the university administration has in turn set up task forces to recommend action steps to improve our diversity profile.
As we have turned community attention to the issue of diversity, we are still concerned to increase underrepresented populations on our campus. That said, however, diversity in the university setting is not and should not be simply about numbers and percentages—it is about education. Students who to come to into the contemporary university should expect to encounter people who are different in all of those ways people can be different; and students who do not experience change because of living in a richly diverse environment are cheated of the kind of education they need to succeed in our world today. As Lehigh continues to adjust its curriculum to involve students in a global learning environment, our educational mission has focused on educating citizens for life in a culturally complex, racially, ethnically and economically diverse world. The diversity issue is—and should be--about education.
But one aspect of diversity I have not heard discussed much has to do with religious diversity, and this is what I want to address.
Religion is one of the major transmitters of values. Religion shapes attitudes about such things as sex, family, marriage, birth control, abortion, homosexuality, uses of force, war and peace, economic justice issues; and even people who do not consider themselves religious cannot escape the power of religion as it affects the dynamics of cultural life in the wider society. Religion can inspire people to attitudes that may be positive and life-affirming, yet it can play a destructive role and cause people harm, for religion can inspire hatred, even violence. We are certainly familiar this aspect of religious in our time.
Religious diversity begins with the affirmation that people have a right—a right guaranteed by our Constitution—to religious freedom. What this means is that, in general, people can believe all kinds of things religiously as long as the free exercise of religion does not harm others.
Religious diversity in the university takes into account the uniqueness of the university population. Non-sectarian universities are more diverse places religiously than society at large. In society at large there are twice as many Protestants as Catholics; at Lehigh Roman Catholics equal and may even outnumber Protestants. In the university setting, the percentage of secular humanists is much higher than the national average; and Jewish, Muslim and Hindu students comprise a larger portion of this population than the society at large.
Religion provokes a diversity worry in the university but it is not due to the mix. The problem, I think, arises out of the university’s mission. That mission is to advance education, and, as I said, diversity in the community is integral to the educational product the university wants to sell. So in our effort to be non-discriminatory and welcoming to all kinds of people with all kinds of different backgrounds, we actually welcome people whose religious viewpoints and beliefs are at odds with our educational mission. That is a diversity issue we have yet to confront.
Consider this example. Our university nondiscrimination policy allows us to welcome into our community gay and lesbian people. That same policy honors religious freedom and welcomes people of diverse religious backgrounds. Some religious perspectives do not welcome gay and lesbian people—some people dislike, even despise gay and lesbian people, and do so for religious reasons. Diversity is up against diversity. Respect for religious freedom brings into our community people who hold negative attitudes about gay people—attitudes that contradict our basic mission of openness and hospitality to gay and lesbian people.
Our mission of inclusiveness creates an internal conflict concerning diversity. On the one hand, we honor non-discrimination; but observing that policy means that we inevitably admit people whose religious views regarding gays and lesbians are quite discriminatory indeed. We have had on the Lehigh campus some bias incidents and many students have been upset by them—rightly so. But what is the issue? Can we be upset solely at the individuals who might write a demeaning and discriminatory epithet on a wall—without also seeing that some who might do such a thing have the attitudes they do because of their religious formation? And do we not want to preserve respect for religious diversity as well and not discriminate against people because of their religious beliefs.
Do you see the conflict? We welcome people of different faith traditions here and do not discriminate on the basis of religion—yet religion is one of the major transmitters of the very values that stand opposed to the university’s mission of inclusiveness.
If we are going to have a thorough conversation about diversity, we are going to have to ask where these attitudes of hatred and discrimination come from, and if we should finally tease out their origins in religious ideas, we must move the conversation to religious ideas themselves. The question we have to face—and it is a troubling question—is, do people with such attitudes belong in the university? Can the university community—not just ours but any university with our mission—welcome into it people whose religious ideas and values put them at odds with the basic educational mission of the university?
I believe that the answer to this question is yes. We must continue to honor religious diversity. But the troubling part is that we can honor religious diversity only if we insist that individuals who hold beliefs and values that defy the university mission not act on them. Just as in our constitutional system religious freedom is limited and can be overruled to protect people—think of courts ordering blood transfusions for the children of Jehovah’s witnesses who would die without them--the university, likewise, must insist that its mission trump religious freedom if exercising religion might lead to harming of others. We are not free to exercise religion in such a way that it leads to harm; and religious freedom will not protect anyone who defies the code of conduct we have put into place to protect the community and to support an intentionally created, religiously pluralistic environment.
Religion is one of the major transmitters of values—positive as well as negative. And the reality is that if we are going to live together amicably, we have to subordinate religious values to moral values of respect and cooperation. The hope is always that religious values will conform to moral values, but the fact is that they need not. What is clear, however, is that in the university, that moral vision must prevail. If individuals are in a religious tradition that authorizes them to be hostile to gays for some theological reason, the solution for the community can be nothing less than this: to affirm that these individuals are free to hold their beliefs while also insisting that they are not free to act on them—they are not permitted to enact their hatred behaviorally and tear the bonds of respect that make possible our experiment in diversity.
When students convened a campus discussion to address what it feels like to be a gay student on the Lehigh campus, I did not hear anything in the time I was in attendance about religion. And the fact is that most of the hatred gay people experience in our nation, and on college campuses, springs from religion. Yet the university is committed by its policy of non-discrimination to the view that a straight person’s college experience is impoverished without an experience of living and learning with gay folks. The question then is, “How do we do diversity when diversity tells us we want gay people in our community, yet we also want to say that that we will not discriminate in admissions or in job hires against people whose religion tells them gay people are perverse or evil?” Inclusivness and religious freedom are both diversity issues. Both need discussion. Nothing is simple when religion comes into the mix.
My hope is that by bringing religious issues into the discussion in more explicitly ways, we will actually begin to allow the pull of what we do in the university as educators to affect people’s beliefs and understanding of religion. To hold a belief and not to be able to enact that belief will affect the strength and meaning of the belief for the person who holds it. By not allowing people to act out the negative, even destructive meaning of some of their beliefs, perhaps we invite reflection and even change those beliefs; and is that not all to the good? I do not think we should be afraid to challenge people’s beliefs, even their religious beliefs, in this setting—for asking questions and pushing conversation is what we do. That is our mission too. The purpose is not to question a person’s right to believe anything in particular, but to raise questions about our understanding, our limited perspectives, our different experiences, our interpretive fallibility.
We have had bias incidents on the Lehigh campus, and, like others, I am upset that they have occurred. But I also want to say this: how could we not expect to have such incidents when students come here from the wider society and in the wider society they learn bias? Out there is racism, sexism, hatred of gays, hatred of women, discrimination against people who are poor, or ugly, or short, or tall, from this ethnic heritage or that religion--all kinds of discriminatory attitudes. People come in here with what they bring in. What we try to do here is educate and raise prejudice to the level of conversation—for a prejudice that is under discussion is a prejudice that is dying.
Diversity is a pressing issue: if we do not attend to it, we can fail in our mission to provide an educational experience that attends to the reality of life in this rather complicated world of ours. And we move toward accomplishing that mission when we mix people up racially, ethnically, politically, religiously, in terms of class and gender and sexual orientation. We create a community where people expose their differences to one another, then have to talk with one another, which means they will have to learn from one another. And we impose a rule of respectful engagement to govern those conversations. That conveys a moral vision as it is expressed in the values of our mission. Respect for others is more than an ideal—it is a practical reality that members of the university community enact everyday behaviorally; and we can demand respectful behaviors of all members of the community whatever beliefs might be held, whatever the sources of those beliefs—even if they be in religion.
My thought is simply that as we discuss and strategize about diversity in our university settings, we must not ignore the role of religion. Religion can be divisive and exclusionary, and even in the university religion can provoke fear, even the fear of confronting religious ideas in their negativity, should such negativity surface. But in the university setting, it is a moral vision of respectful engagement that governs our encounters, our conversations, our learning; and religion must, in this setting, submit to that moral vision so that learning can take place, which includes, presumably, the dispelling of ignorance. The university can model for the wider society how to honor diversity by welcoming difference and insisting that it be treated with civility and respect.
____________________________
Opening Ceremony for the “Eyes Wide Open-Pennsylvania” event at Packer Memorial Church, Lehigh University, October 6, 2006.
Good Morning. We are pleased to welcome to our campus the “Eyes Wide Open—Pennsylvania” project of the American Friends Service Committee. Today’s exhibit is a part of the national Eyes Wide Open project, and it brings to the Lehigh Valley, beginning today, here on the Lehigh campus, a reminder of the human cost of war. The exhibit features one pair of military boots for every Pennsylvania casualty in Iraq (and 50 pairs of civilian shoes, tagged with Iraqi names, representing the 50:1 ratio of Iraqi to US casualties in the current conflict.)
As of July 2006 Pennsylvania has lost over 128 soldiers, the third highest state casualty count in the US; and this includes Sergeant Jennifer Hartman, of New Ringgold, Pennsylvania, a Tamaqua High School Graduate, who died in a car bomb explosion in West Baghdad on September 14th.
This project is a reminder that war is a desperate and tragic means for solving conflicts; and it is also a memorial to those who died. Wherever the Eyes Wide Open project has gone, whether here in Pennsylvania or around our country, it has met with acclaim as it has reminded us, the same way the AIDS Quilt did here some years ago, that casualty statistics hide in their impersonal numbers very personal stories, very personal losses, and very personal grief, pain, and sorrow.
We open this event with some brief statements from a representative of this event’s on campus sponsors, the Progressive Student Alliance (Tamara Nisic); fro Professor John Pettegrew, Director of American Studies; from Terry Briscoe representing local community people working with LEPOCO, and from Scilla Wahrhaftig, from the Pennsylvania American Friends Service Committee. Following these statements, the names of each fallen Pennsylvania soldier will be read along with an Iraqui civilian casualty. The exhibit is open for you to walk through, to pause for prayer or reflection or meditation; to leave notes or flowers or other tributes; to remember and to mourn.
This event is a memorial tribute to the dead—and it is offered as hope to the living, that by remembering, we might renew our efforts as individuals and as a nation to work always for understanding, to work always for peace.
(Note: As of yesterday, the total number of deaths in Iraq number 2728, with 11,335 wounded and returned to action and 9352 wounded and not retunred to action.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
“When the World is too Much With us. . . .” ( A Reflection on Hope and Choice) (A somewhat shorter version published in The Morning Call on August 19, 2006, p. D9, Faith and Values Column)
Lloyd Steffen
“The world is too much with us” William Wordsworth sighed two centuries ago in a short poem--and who would not agree?
Our world is filled with discord, violence and hostility. So many things seem out of control. Everywhere we look we face seemingly intractable conflicts and problems that defy solution. Think of the world that is “too much with us” us today: war in Iraq, Israel’s war with Hezzbolah, religious extremism and terrorist plots to blow up airliners. Poverty is pervasive all over the globe, and environmental degradation, illiteracy, overpopulation, disease and natural disasters pose continual threats to human well being, even survival. In the United States, we face unprecedented calamities in geopolitical affairs, and looming about are the domestic crises of health care, public education, immigration, a massive and unparalleled public debt, oil production interruptions and rising prices at the gas pumps. The warnings about global warming are suddenly real, and in the background: hurricane season. The world is too much with us, and we wonder what will come next.
A few months ago I was involved in a discussion with some college students about “the great issues of our day,” and one student put her finger on a problem that is often obscured when we catalogue all that is not well with the world. The student asked a simple yet arresting question: “But what can I do?”
That question reveals bewilderment and powerlessness. As new and complex problems arise and do so in the immediacy of a news break, bewilderment is a natural response. Events seem to catch us off guard, and we often lack the background for grasping the news of the day. How many Americans really knew about Hezzbolah before the recent conflict broke out? And moral compasses seem to spin rather than point, as when the American ambassador to the United Nations prepared a release (not formally delivered but nonetheless prepared) stating that the deaths of Israeli civilians are somehow worse that the deaths of Lebanese civilians? Amid so much conflict, ignorance and moral confusion, we find ourselves at times simply inadequate to the task of understanding what is going on. We are bewildered.
But more than bewilderment is the feeling of powerlessness that rushes in on us like a wave of exhaustion. So much seems out of control, and like that student, we feel personally helpless to affect change and make things better. When powerlessness joins bewilderment, the poet’s insight seems to say it all: “the world is too much with us.”
Our religious traditions address questions like “But what can I do?” by moving us to the spiritual resources that then allow us to make positive and creative responses to the problems of our world. Christianity, for instance, emphasizes the need to take into the world faith, love and hope—and in these days perhaps the greatest of these is hope. Hope is not optimism. Optimism is a kind of personality orientation whereby people approach the world as if things will not only get better but have to, for clouds do have silver linings and streets have sunny sides. Optimism has foundations in character—some folks are just oriented that way.
But hope refers to an attitude, even a confidence that things fit together even though “the events of the day” would suggest otherwise. An antidote to feelings of helplessness, despondency, or hope’s classic antagonist—despair, hope is what puts things into motion and impels us to labor; it directs us to envision possibilities and surround them with care; it stirs our imaginations to expect things—and not only to expect but also to attempt. Hope can mitigate grief and make consolation possible; it can heal even when there is no cure and move us to overcome difficulties. Hope directs us to the expectation of meaning and then makes real the possibility of spiritual truth, allowing us to approach the events of the day with balance, even some calmness, urging us to live as if we have yet to see the bigger picture.
That bigger picture inspires people to create possibilities for change. Recall how the original American constitution condoned—legalized—slavery and the political suppression of women. The curve of constitutional change since the time of Lincoln has been consistently in the direction of increasing freedom, equality and inclusiveness in our society. That is a big picture hope for those who experience discrimination before the law. Gays and lesbians are today victims of a terrible bigotry in American society, but as Bishop John Shelby Spong has said, “When we start talking about bigotry, its days are numbered.” As painful as this time is for gay and lesbian people, there is comfort—hope—in that insight.
So “What can I do?” when the world is too much with us? Buddhism lays out some guidelines for its vision of right living, directing people to respect life, avoid anger, gossip and boasting, and to act with kindness. And Buddhist teaching instructs people to find a right livelihood. A college student wondering “What can I do?” ought to give serious attention to that issue. What kind of occupation or career can I pursue that will contribute positively to peace of mind and the peace in the world? In Buddhism, this end cannot be accomplished by, say, making armaments or feeding a desire for wealth. The message: think about the need to conform work to the values of peace and compassion rather than sacrificing those values to the necessity of making a living.
“What can I do?” is a moral question about how we shall live, and it is a spiritual question about how we will use our freedom—to what end. In a world too much with us, heed Gandhi, who said, “Be the change you seek.” The question “What can I do?” ought not be a lamenting cry of despair but an opportunity to take hope into the world and an occasion to build that world through the pathways we take and the choices we make.
Lloyd Steffen is University Chaplain and Professor Religion Studies at Lehigh University.
__________________________________
AIDS and Faith (Published in edited form as a Spritual Journeys Column "Churches Offer Conflicting Messages about Gays" in the Express-Times, Friday, December 16, 2005: C 12, C 9.)
The issue of homosexuality and the Church has led to heated, often divisive debates in the Christian Church. Many Protestant Churches have been torn apart by disputes over including of gay and lesbian people into the full life of the church. These disputes sometimes center on ordination, sometimes on equal marriage. The Bible is not the fuel for these debates—the fuel is homophobia--but it is like the oxygen source needed to sustain the combustion. Some argue that the Bible condemns homosexuality, which in some places it does, while others argue that other values than obedience to the letter of the text must guide practice, values such as love, acceptance, and inclusion.
Given how rancorous and hate-filled some of these debates have become in various religious communities, all peace-loving people of good will, religious or not, ought to be grateful that those who appeal to, say, the Hebrew Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality do not push their literal interpretation so far as to agree with the divine commandment that homosexual people should be put to death, which is, literally, the punishment the Lord imposes on those guilty of homosexuality (Leviticus 20.13). Religious morality often has a “pick and choose” quality to those who claim to be literal interpreters of Scripture. It is as if they find themselves saying, “I’m literal when I quote the verse or part of the verse I like, but I can ignore what I do not like.” Nothing like the attention given the few verses in Scripture that deal with homosexuality is given to the more than 2000 verses that deal with the poor.
Roman Catholic Christians have recently heard from their new pope, Benedict the XVI, that gay men should be barred from the priesthood (unless they are free of “profoundly deep- rooted homosexual tendencies” and have overcome transitory homosexual inclinations in a three year period prior to ordination to the deaconate). This document arises from a study begun in 1994 and reinforces a stance the Church has taken since 1961.
Although this recent pronouncement argues that homosexuals suffer from an “objective” disorder that “gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women,” there is no doubt that the context for this document is the clergy sex abuse scandal. The papal pronouncement subtly reinforces an irresponsible stereotype. Read against the backdrop of the clergy sex abuse scandal, that unfounded stereotype is that homosexual people are sexual predators. (In fact, social scientists contradict this idea with data showing that sex offenders are as likely to be heterosexual as homosexual.)
The papal document does not mention clergy sexual abuse but it suggests that in order for priests to related correctly to men and women, the Church must refuse holy orders to men who happen to be gay and who want to respond to a call to the priestly vocation. The suffering this may cause gay men who feel called by God to the priesthood will never be fully known. The Roman Catholic Church is facing various problems with the priesthood, but this document, which does not address the sex abuse scandal, provides a basis for concluding that homosexuality is the problem underlying that scandal. That conclusion is uninformed and irresponsible.
Lest it be thought Christianity is inherently hostile to gay people, it is worth noting that some Christian Churches have taken progressive stances of support for gay people, welcoming them into congregations and into leadership roles, including ordination. There is even a Protestant denomination that directly targets its ministry to gay, lesbian and transgendered people, the Metropolitan Community Church. We are blessed to have an MCC congregation in the Lehigh Valley.
The beliefs advanced in the Metropolitan Church denominational Statement of Faith says nothing about gay and lesbian people. The statement of faith accepts that the Bible shows forth God to “every person” that “all people are Children of God being spiritually made in God’s image,” and that God’s love is available to “all people.” On the basis of this theological vision, the Metropolitan Community Church reaches out to those who suffer exclusion in the community of faith, which in very real and practical ways includes gay, lesbian, and transgendered people. When, at a recent Sunday service, the local Metropolitan Community Church recognized World AIDS Sunday, the invitation to communion was extended to all, including those who have been turned away elsewhere in faith communities.
At that service, speakers acknowledged 46 million people world wide who are infected with HIV/AIDS, over 1100 of those people known to be living in the Lehigh Valley. The congregation focused on the healing power of faith and the difference people of compassion and inclusion can make in a world where condemnation and exclusion too often rule the day. Part of the AIDS quilt was draped behind the altar. Some acquainted personally with loss due to AIDS were present in the congregation.
The themes of this service were echoed elsewhere around the world. The Ecumenical AIDS Consultation issued a letter from Bangkok, Thailand to Christians everywhere reminding the Church that it is a healing community with a mission of “love and compassion,” and that the “Church can achieve much more than it has in the areas of awareness building, training, networking and advocacy to overcome prejudice, ignorance, fear and judgmental attitudes.” That letter called upon all member churches to “deepen a spirituality based on the love of God, the love of neighbor and love among ourselves especially as regards people living with and affected by HIV an AIDS.” The Church was itself envisioned as a sanctuary of love.
As debates in some areas of the Christian community focus on excluding gays, lesbians and transgendered people, others are reaching out to acknowledge their suffering and offer a healing place of refuge where the focus is not on judgmentalism but on compassion. They transform the community of faith by this emphasis.
Having experienced the celebratory service on World AIDS Sunday, I was reminded that those of us who are religious finally chose how we shall be religious. Although religious faith can always be used to sanction hatred and fear, there are other choices to make, choices that turn in the direction of healing, compassion and love of neighbor. And those are the choices that hold, I think, the world’s only real hope for peace and healing.
Lloyd Steffen is University Chaplain and Professor of Religion Studies at Lehigh University.