The title is a bit misleading, and I think it probably fooled those who were looking for talking points. It is really a book about the misconceptions and delusions (that all humans share), which lead to different forms of radicalism.

Though it becomes quite evident when you read Hedges, I’ll mention that it is important to recognize his background. He is the son of a Presbyterian minister and graduate of Harvard Divinity School. He was a war correspondent for almost twenty years, writing for NPR, The Christian Science Monitor, and the New York Times.

I Don’t Believe in Atheists is centered around one major premise: that we cannot progress morally as a species, and that the only way to avoid war is to avoid radicalism, which is to recognize the lack of absolutism in this world and acknowledge our fallibility.

Hedges hooks you in the beginning with “The God Debate” and how fundamentalists—the Christian Right and New Atheists—are united by the very practice of their opposition to each other.

They are in show business, and those in show business know complexity does not sell . . . They don masks. One wears the mask of religion, the other wears the mask of science . . . One distorts the scientific theory of evolution to explain the behavior and rules for complex social, economic and political systems. The other insists that the six-day story of creation in Genesis is fact and Jesus will descend from the sky to create the kingdom of God of Earth. These antagonists each claim to have discovered an absolute truth. They trade absurdity for absurdity. They show that the danger is not religion or science. The danger is fundamentalism itself (32).

A third of the book centers around this science/religion/God debate and its usual utter simplicity. Hedges used the remainder of the book to expand on his original premise, bringing in his education and experience. Instead of paraphrasing, I’ll just present sections that I have found to be worth serious contemplation and meditation, or just say things particularly well.

The concept of sin is a stark acknowledgment that we can never be omnipotent, that we are bound and limited by human flaws and self-interest (14).

Any form of knowledge that claims to be absolute ceases to be knowledge. It becomes a form of faith (20).

The new atheists, like all fundamentalists, flee from complexity. They can cope with religion in its most primitive and abusive form. They are helpless when confronted by a faith that challenges their caricatures . . . The Bible, which they are so fond of attacking as incoherent, was never designed to be a coherent book (34).

We are not saved by religion. We are saved by turning away from projects that tempt us to become God, and by accepting our own contamination and the limitations of being human (79).

Where rigid, formal obedience to law allows the adherent to avoid ethical choice, the truly moral life grapples with the inscrutable call to do what is right, to reach out to those who are reviled, labeled outcasts or enemies, and to practice compassion and tolerance, even at the cost of self-annihilation. And all ethical action begins with an acknowledgment of our own sin and moral ambiguity (92).

When Jesus attacks the chief priests, scribes, lawyers, Pharisees, Sadducees and other “blind guides,” he is attacking an authoritarianism as endemic to Christianity as to all institutions and ideologies. The story of Christ’s death is a reminder that what is sacred in life always appears to us in flesh and blood. It is not found in abstract ideas or utopian schemes for human perfectibility. The moment the writers of the gospels began to set down the words of Jesus they began to kill the message (94).

Human evil is not a problem. It is a mystery . . . The forces of darkness are our own forces. If we fail to name or acknowledge these forces, they will destroy us. Acknowledgment means accepting that our encounter with evil is permanent and perpetual (156).

Those who place their faith in a purely rational existence begin from the premise that human beings can have fixed and determined selves governed by reason and knowledge. This is itself an act of faith (160).

Wisdom goes beyond self-awareness. It permits us to interpret the rational and the non-rational . . . those who remain trapped within the confines of knowledge and pedantry do not commune with the larger world (162).

Those who focus only on human communication, who are unable to step outside the realm of prosaic knowledge, sever themselves from the sacred (164).

Detachment without withdrawal, Ecclesiastes writes, is one of the secrets of wisdom. Death awaits us all. We must give up on the notion that one is rewarded for virtue, that we can save ourselves from our human predicament or that we can morally advance as a species (172).

The ancient Greeks held in high esteem the command they believed came from Apollo: “Know thyself.” To know ourselves is to accept our limitations and imperfections (184).

During Communion at a parish near the U.S. Capitol Building, the rector tore piece after piece of a loaf of bread as he distributed it to the group circling the altar. As he did this, crumbs tumbled onto the raised platform.

One of my friends turned to me with trauma in her eyes, “that is Christ’s body all over the floor!” she said horrified.

Having seen some interesting communions—including a rainbow-sprinkled sweet loaf at a youth conference this summer—I was not so startled, but it seemed a bit impetuous to me as well.

By the end of the service, the smooth green carpet was freckled white, and my friend was determined not to return; she perceived their practice as utterly disrespectful.

In the parable of the sower (Matthew 13.1-23, Mark 4.1-20, Luke 8.1-15), God’s word is the seed spread all over the ground, including places where it will have no chance at life. The birds gobble-up a bit; rocks catch some in their barren crevices; thorns choke the few that are able to sprout; and the remainder produces copious amounts of grain for a bountiful harvest.

As one of my professor’s noted in a sermon, the seed is so abundant that it is spread everywhere. The sower does not make organized rows of seeds, carefully planting each one in good soil; hoping to yield as much as possible, he throws them on his path, knowing full well that most will not flourish. God’s word is that abundant too.

Only the prepared will understand, but all may receive.

Perhaps this rector’s apparent disregard for the bread is a statement about the availability of Christ’s body for the world. This parish practiced open communion, as does Good Shepherd; any person who wishes to may receive the bread and the wine.

Setting aside debates about open communion, the act of building a lesson of God’s abundant word in such a vivid manner during Sunday morning worship is an extremely powerful one. Had I considered this possibility during the service, I might have taken in the beauty of such a deliberate representation of God’s grace and bounty.

And if the seed is the word of God, and the word of God is the Gospel, than we are not merely called to be the fertile soil; we are in fact commissioned by Christ to be the sower.

We are to indiscriminately spread the love of God and Good News of Jesus Christ everywhere.

“Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”

‎“This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon, all eulogized by our African American President.”

This is an excerpt of Mark Shields paraphrasing Alan Ginsburg in this article.

This seat gives me a great view of first class—the elite seats. I rode first class once; they upgraded me after forcing me to stay in Minneapolis overnight. I moved to put my coat in the overhead containter and the chubby male flight attendant, JoJo, took my coat quipping, “honey, you’re in first class. We hang coats on hooks here.”

I wondered what other practical luxuries I would enjoy. They hang the coats? Totally worth paying more than 200% of the ticket price for.

Well that isn’t fair. They get a meal, alcohol to the point of unruliness, a slightly wider seat, a few extra inches of legroom, and sometimes DirecTV…oh…and a hot towel.

My round-trip flight from Reagan International Airport to Portland International Airport, with layovers in Houston each way, was around $550 during the holiday season. I had the option of paying around $850 extra to fly in first class, making the total $1400, minus the charge for checked baggage. So the meal, alcohol, big seat, legroom, and DirecTV are worth $850 per 7 hours of flying? That is about $120 extra per hour.

There is also the advantage of getting on and off the plane first, but that really doesn’t mean less time on the plane because they have to sit and wait while the coach passengers get on. The sitting and waiting inevitably turns into displays of iPads, Kindles, or just look-aheads as if the first class passengers were drivers trying to avoid letting someone in their lane.

I’m perplexed at how such exorbitant prices only add up to miniscule rewards—even more, how could someone pay that much for so little willingly?

I was recently asked how someone could be considered too rich. Instead of making a moral determination that suits my limits, I will ask a few questions. I think that most would have somewhat polarized answers to this enigma that would demonize willing purchasers of first class tickets. Is it shameful to spend money on that when there are so many poor and hungry people in the world? If you are offered the seat for free, should you accept it, or is it best to give it to a mother with a baby in tow or an elderly person? Those questions, while reflecting morally upright attitudes about helping others in need (social justice, Christianity, etc.), can be used to judge or portray someone as wicked.

If you work and earn the kind of money that can afford first class, why shouldn’t you go for it? What place is it of someone whose income doesn’t reflect the liberty to spend that much to judge someone who can easily spend 200% more on a ticket and still meet all of the needs of her/his lifestyle?

Illustrated another way, I’m typing on a MacBook, which cost a pretty penny when I bought it two years ago. Surely there are less expensive computers that would get the job done. My Banana Republic chinos certainly perform the same function as an old pair of Levi’s, and they may only last the same amount of time before wearing out. It isn’t hard to criticize someone’s purchases when in our world people literally don’t have food to eat or clean water to drink.

Even someone on welfare might occasionally splurge on a bag of Doritos and meet mumbles of criticism at the checkout stand. “How can he spend our graciously given tax dollars on junk food?” We all have different ideas of excess, which I hope doesn’t just sound like the lame, non-confrontational, tactful response of a future Episcopal priest. I think that rather than condemning people for spending or not spending on this or that has proven unconstructive so far. Perhaps we all could use an attitude adjustment—I know I need one sometimes.

If we are going to help the suffering people in our country and the world, maybe the best way to start is by working together.

Raymond Chase hung himself in his dorm room at Johnson & Wales University. He was openly gay, and there was obviously a lot more hurt inside than he showed outside. He was 19.

Tyler Clementi was pushed over the edge when his roommate filmed and posted footage of him with another young man online. He was 18.

Billy Lucas was bullied at school—told that he was a piece of crap and that he didn’t deserve to live and that he was gay. He was 15.

Asher Brown was accused of being gay in school, some of the kids performed gay acts on him as a mockery. He was 13.

These young men died within the last three weeks.

They died feeling very alone and unloved. As the media has been giving more coverage to these kinds of stories, I’ve been reflecting on my own—looking back to when I was tempted to end what I perceived to be a problem without a solution. I thought to myself, “If I just kill myself now, I’ll be remembered for being a good Christian boy who could play the piano and had good grades. I’ll never have to tell anyone, and my reputation won’t be stained by this ugly part of me.”

I didn’t tell anyone about that until I came out, and if I had gone through with driving my truck off of that cliff, no one would have ever known. “They might not know that it was suicide,” I thought.

How many more are out there that hate themselves and cannot reconcile being transgendered, bi, a lesbian, or gay and being a part of our, or any culture?

Recently I posted to Facebook this video. It’s Ellen Degeneres’ response to the recent suicides. Along with it I invited anyone struggling with sexuality to talk to or write me. I remember wishing that someone would have made a similar offer when I was really struggling. No one did. There aren’t enough safe spaces around to hear those things, and it seems to me that there should be.

The following is copied from a blog called Talk About Equality. There are some powerful posts on this blog, and I encourage you to read them. The list contains a few organizations that are trying to change things so that these young people don’t feel like they aren’t worthy of life anymore.

• The Victory Fund is running an online campaign to support Chris Armstrong and put a stop to Andrew Shirvell’s cyber bullying.
• There is an online petition up at Change.org, started by friend of T.A.E. Julielyn Gibbons. Sign it now.
• On October 5th, the Safe Schools Action Network has organized a National Day of Action.
• The Trevor Project is a wonderful organization which provides support to LGBT Youth considering suicide.
• The Human Right’s Campaign has an online petition targeted at the Secretary of Education. Sign it now.
• The Pacer Center has declared October National Bullying Prevention Month
• Check out Welcoming Schools.  A great resource for safe schools.
• Dan Savage has launched the It Gets Better project.  Record a video or spread the word.

Check them out. Spread the word. National Coming Out Day is on Monday, October 11th. Make yourselves available to those who might be struggling. Most importantly, if you are struggling with your sexuality, know that it gets better.

How did you do?

The most striking portion of a recent article in the New York Times (Athiests Outdo Some Believers in Survey on Religion) and the Huffington Post (Religious Literacy: Americans don’t know much about religion), to me was that:

“The U.S. is one of the most religious countries in the developed world, especially compared to largely secular Western Europe, but faith leaders and educators have long lamented that Americans still know relatively little about religion.”

How exactly can we be defining our country as the most religious, when a survey of 3412 people with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent shows we know quite little? Many of the questions highlighted in the article are of history:

In what century the Mormon religion was founded?

Why was Martin Luther important?

Some of the questions are more fact-based:

What is the first book of the Bible?

What is the name of the holy book of Islam?

Because each participant was asked to which religion s/he considers her/himself to be a member of, the numbers were divided into how knowledgeable each religion is. I’m not sure how I feel about making that determination (since Episcopalians are grouped with all protestants—a very diverse group, but the results are worth looking at anyway:

Athiests and Agnostics scored the highest with an average of 21 correct answers out of 32 questions.

Jews and Mormons followed right behind with averages of 20 correct answers.

Protestants averaged 16 correct answers.

Roman Catholics were right behind averaging 15 correct answers.

Essentially the survey turned out to be a more formal version of Jay Leno’s “Jay-Walking.” I’d encourage you to read the article and study for the rest of their results.

I suppose that while this is something to think about, it is important to note the many fallacies of the study. The groupings are horrendous and show the ignorance of those who made them. They obviously don’t understand religion and are using strangely surface and sometimes trivial questions. That being said, it is quite sad that so many did so poorly.

*Note: the quiz linked to above is different from the one mentioned in the article.

The last three weeks have been an endless stream of orientations, Greek classes, and a three-day cultural competency training where I learned how cultural competency trainings should not be done—although I will say that being able to hear others’ stories about encountering racism was an important experience for me.

Our August Term ended Thursday, so I pushed the Πατερ ημων (excuse the lack of a breathing mark) to the back of my mind and joined the incoming students in a tour of our National Cathedral seen here in Martin Sheen’s powerful scene in The West Wing.

We stayed for Evening Prayer and I had the chance to lead the Psalm. Afterward we moved on the the Sayre House for a reception with some of the cathedral volunteers and clergy.

Today, with the entire VTS community we attended a Eucharist service where our dean preached about the gospel of the omnipotent Chuck Norris. Well not so much, but if you’re unfamiliar with Chuck Norris “facts”, visit www.chucknorrisfacts.com. It’s interesting, and frankly kind of surprising that these jokes extend beyond our borders, at least to Ecuador. I remember sitting in a car with Rafa and Adri telling “facts” in English and Spanish . . . the sermon diverges from this, of course.

Tomorrow the real fun begins for me with church history in the morning and Greek in the afternoon.

So as I was saying, Chuck Norris doesn’t use breathing marks, he round-house kicks vowels and dipthongs until they start wheezing.

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Click here for more pictures from the cathedral…

Click here for some more fun around VTS…

I made it to Virginia, but not before a rousing week crossing this great country of ours in a ’98 Honda Civic.

Grace and I hit the road early Monday morning last week, stopping at the 50,000 Silver Dollar en route to our first destination: Bozeman, Montana. Excited for a much shorter day to Rapid City, South Dakota, we were on our way the next day to see a few (and some of the only) things between ‘here’ and ‘there’. First was the site of Custer’s last stand, the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. I was thrilled to see a nice memorial not only to Custer and his men, but also to all of the previous owners of this country…you know…the First Nation and everything.

We were able to see Mount Rushmore around dinner time, just as the sun was setting behind the presidents’ heads. It was cool to see, but probably not something I’ll be rushing back to unless I’m going to make the extra drive to the Crazy Horse monument (currently under construction).

The third day was more driving than monuments; the goal was Waterloo, Iowa, so after playing the popular Abba song a few times, the excitement of the day was done. That is, until we ordered a 50 lb/12 inch pizza that was covered in an ungodly amount of marinara…”Chicago-style” I guess.

Day four landed us in Auburn Township, Ohio at my aunt and uncle’s house. We had a large, delicious meal with them, my cousins, another uncle, his roommate, and my cousin’s girlfriend. It was also good to see my great aunt and her friend.

The next day, my cousin Mike, Grace and I went to my grandmother’s alzheimer home. She knew I was family most of the time, but at the end told me how great it was to meet me. She said I “look like I could be family.” Oh well. She’s being taken care of, and that’s what’s important.

Following two nights in the Cleveland area, we took the final step of the journey to Virginia. We found a hotel in Fredericksburg where we took a tour of the haunted city. It turns out four civil war battles happened in that “burg,” including some of the first guerilla warfare. The historical part of the tour was really cool, and our guide was very dramatic, which made for some good impressions on the way home.

So Sunday rolled around, and Grace and I found my new campus in Alexandria. It’s really a gorgeous school with a lot of brick buildings and trees full of alien-sounding bugs. And I can’t complain about the dorms, as they are big and air-conditioned with private bathrooms. We have been doing orientation the last three days and will begin the short August term on Monday.

More to come as I get settled at VTS.