Current Affairs: January 2006 Archives

In an entry entitled Onward Christian Tee Shirts, Healing Hagar takes note of some brutal art work. They didn't include this one, which has horrified me for decades and which is my fully illustrated answer to how Unitarian Universalists Christians differ with the more orthodox.

For those among my readers who want more insight into the social agenda of vicarious atonement theology (which Channing called that "monster") there are more bumper stickers on this site. There is a logic in that madness.

Google has its strengths and it has its limitations. Sometimes I find more about a subject than I would ever ask, and sometimes I find nothing about something important if obscure to the internet world of commerce, scandal, and happenings.

I was thinking of writing a little essay on the subject of church growth. I still may. I was thinking that I might say a congregation is stronger with a smaller membership if they are active, than say a big congregation with few active members. Not a shocking idea, but one that doesn't get talked about in this age in which we privilege quantitative measurement rather than qualitative appraisal.

A wonderful title flashed in my mind, I thought "Better smaller but better." But then I remembered that that was a quote from V.I.Lenin, who was celebrating a split in the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. Lenin was arguing that the Party had too many opportunists, too many drifters and a split between the lean and mean Bolsheviks and the sloppy and pandering Mensheviks was really a good thing. Nothing to do with churches obviously.

Not that there is a copyright on titles, after all how many books have the same titles. Lots.

But I confess. I was afraid that I would be red baited. Red baiting is going around these days, even on UU blogs. Somebody might call me Comrade So Bold, as if reading Marx or Lenin was a sign of mental degeneration. Of course this would come from a person who is still waiting for weapons of mass destruction to be unearthed, or who thinks that Secretary Rice is a "Negro leader." Liberals have an amazing tolerance for slow learners.

Then I thought Lenin also said "one step forward, two steps backward" and I think, gee that must be a Russian dance step. So, "Better smaller but better" was probably a Russian folk idiom. Lenin was no poet, he was a polemist.

۬So I checked by putting the words "Better smaller but better" into Google. Nothing. Now I think Google is illiterate. I can find detailed quotes about a simple parish minister like myself through their search engine and I can't find one from one of the guys who made the twentieth century so stressful.

I was dealing with a technical support person at Apple yesterday.  I was put on hold a half a dozen times and told that they couldn't help me twice, but finally I got some one to see the justice of my case, and I got the service that I needed.  Not the service that I wanted, but what they will do will do, and that is all I can ask.

I thought about that when I read Scott Wells post "who complains about the UUA" and my own history of complaining about individual staff and problematic programs resident at 25 Beacon Street.  I suspect I have had and continue to have more complaints than the most dedicated UUA critic.  Four decades of experience, close observation, and my own vision of what our movement can and should be gives me lots of fuel for the fires of critique.

But over the years I have come to know the players, and I have heard the rational for the programs and I have witnessed a lot of the comings and goings of headquarters staff.  Knowing the people involved has modified my response.  Now, I assume that most everyone involved is working with good intentions, and while I may disagree with a decision or policy,  it is a disagreement with people I hold in regard.  Back when I was in LRY, and even later when I was a young adult I took my disagreements personally, and railed against the bureaucrats at '25.'

Now I understand, when dealing with the UUA repeat the following prayer:

GOD, grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
and the Wisdom
to know the difference.

There are some things that can be changed. We might get Emerson demoted and Parker promoted.  But as long as the UUA is a hierarchal and departmentalized corporation with the staff accountable to the President, and the President and Moderator elected by delegates and most trustees elected by their Districts the accountability will be diffuse and the corporation will have a life of its own.

Ramie Wilson writes "imagine an America where a woman's right to reproductive choice is no longer protected by the Constitution. I thought about a country where abortion providers are forced to refuse women access to health care. I pictured the frightened faces of women -- especially women without economic means -- who are forced to rely on doctors who perform illegal abortions in often unsafe and unsanitary conditions."   She writes an informative article which puts the issue of "the right to choose to have an abortion" as a concrete justice issue,  article but it does not tackle the important work of reframing this right so that people can identify with it as a human justice issue.  I prefer "the right to be a Mother, without coercion or shame."

Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley writes:

"The year is still new, and I find myself reflecting on 2005 and even the end of 2004. It was a time of disasters-many brought on by nature: the tsunami that hit South Asia and parts of East Africa; Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastating the Gulf Coast of the United States; the earthquake in Pakistan.

These natural disasters remind us that we are all part of the interconnected web of existence. But in some way, natural disaster masks another kind of disaster-the kind that can be prevented: the disaster of social and economic injustice. Hurricane Katrina showed the human face of racism, poverty and its consequences right before our eyes. And yet, in the news media last week, we learned of a plan hatched by rich developers to rebuild New Orleans. It is a plan that does not include housing the city's poor; nor does it call for the poorest residents of the Lower Ninth Ward (most of them Black) to have the first right of refusal to live in the community they once called home. And we learned that several hotels in New Orleans have evicted hundreds of people whose bills were being paid by FEMA; people who lost their homes and nearly everything they owned; people who have no place to go.

Now I know that the corporate sector has to make money if they want to stay in business. But what does it mean when the richest country in the world lets so many people fall through the social safety net.

Unfortunately, we don't need a hurricane or a flood to see poverty, for each day, poverty kills thousands of people in this country. Each day, hundreds of thousands of people go hungry. Every day, too many senior citizens face the awful choice of cutting back on their medicines or on their food. And others-including families with young children-increase the army of the working poor who struggle to make ends meet without a living wage.

So often, we think of Dr. King in terms of racial justice, and certainly, that was one of the issues he championed along with peace (or non-violence)and economic justice. So, it seems appropriate to focus on economic justice as we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Mr. Luther King, Jr. This especially so given that King spent his last days in Memphis preparing to stage a march in support of black sanitation workers fighting for a fair wage.

One sanitation worker on strike at the time, Taylor Rogers, who is now 79 years old remembered how Dr. King "put everything aside to come to Memphis to see about the people on the bottom of the ladder, the sanitation workers."

This was part of King's campaign with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to organize a Poor People's Campaign to address what he felt was a crisis of economic disparity. He had crisscrossed the country to assemble "a multiracial army of the poor," had descended on Washington, and was prepared to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience until the Congress enacted a poor people's Bill of Rights.

This poor people's Bill of Rights called for jobs programs to rebuild America's cities. King saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its "hostility to the poor"-appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but providing "poverty funds with miserliness."

If Dr. King could see that military spending has continued to escalate (far beyond the 1968 level) and that Congress has approved massive tax cuts that benefit the rich, he would not be silent. He was not fighting for fair wages and supporting the organization of unions because he enjoyed this kind of thing, but he did it because justice was central to his theology. In a speech he gave to the sanitation workers the day before he was assassinated, King stated, "You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor."

He knew that he was risking his life by challenging the status quo. He did it because it was one way of acknowledging the value of every person, no matter what job they do. "So often" he said, "we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth."

The inherent worth and dignity of every person was a foundation of Dr. King's theology as it is part of mine. It is the first principle of the faith that we claim as Unitarian Universalists! The inherent worth and dignity of every person-the men who pick up your garbage each week; the clerk at McDonald's, the maid at the Holiday Inn who will change your sheets and towels when you take your next business trip or your next vacation; the hospital worker down the street who empties bed pans; the clerk at Wal-Mart, a store I've never been in, by the way, because of the unfair way they treat their workers.

All these service workers and the work that they do has worth and dignity! In a 1961 speech at an AFL-CIO convention, King stated, "Our needs are identical with labor's needs-decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor's demands and fight laws which curb labor."

Elsewhere in his writings, King made the justice issue even clearer, challenging the soul of who we are as a country when he said: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." He then offered a critique of our country as a "thing-oriented society" versus a "person-oriented society."

How do we escape the prospect of spiritual death that is much more real since Dr. King left us? Part of my response is to remember King's words that "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Two weeks ago, I visited my congresswoman to tell her that I do not support the budget cuts from social programs or the tax cuts for the rich--both of which she voted for. My next step is a letter to her. In whatever way you find, let us not be silent about things that matter.

A Luta Continua (the struggle continues)

A sermon excerpt - January 16, 2006, Unitarian Universalist Church of Tampa

We live in time of symbolic politics when both Democrats and Republicans are more concerned with their image than with substance.  Politicians who do nothing to advance the concerns of People of Color or address the growing racial divide in our nation will parade their admiration for Martin Luther King, Jr. today.  While there are some excellent representatives of the people who are also Democrats, most Democrats support for the issues of communities of Color is week,.  But still the Republicans actively oppose these measures.  We are stuck in the politics of the better of two evils, because Republicans whose rise to power was a direct result of openly exploiting the "white backlash" are the most brazen in saying one thing while doing quite the opposite.  It is important to understand both political parties, lest one become misled by their rhetoric.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes: "If he were alive, King would almost certainly oppose GOP economic policies, which squeeze the poor. ..there is much in King's background and social philosophy that Republicans have repackaged to suit their aims.  Nevertheless Martin Luther King, Jr. is an icon to exploit and exploit him they will.

Also check out this article by Hutchinson on manipulation of King's legacy.

There was a struggle to make Martin Luther King's birthday a legal holiday, now there is a struggle to make it mean something.  Resolve that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday doesn't become another shopping holiday, but a commemoration.  Make a day of service, not a day off.

MLK Day timeline

€¢ April 4, 1968 Dr. King was assassinated.

€¢ U.S. Representative John Conyers of Michigan introduced
legislation to create a federal holiday to commemorate Dr. King.

€¢ 1973 Illinois became the first state to adopt MLK Day as a state holiday.

€¢ 1985 U.S. officially observes Martin Luther King Day for the first time.

€¢ January 20, 1986 The United States observed the first federal MLK Day.

€¢ January 18, 1993 Martin Luther King Day holiday was observed
in all 50 states for the first time.

In an article entitled "We shall overcome . . .  Liberals, " writer Micheal Goldberg reviews a Philadelphia political rally held by religious right leaders who have openly entered into the political struggle to confirm Samuel Alito.  The so-called Justice Sunday appropriated the rhetoric of the civil rights movement for its drive to gain control over the federal judiciary.

Meanwhile liberals wonder whether or not the IRS will investigate us if we mention that Jesus was a pacifist and would object to war stance of both Bush and Kerry.  The use of some African American clergy for right wing rallies will not change the democratic, pro-civil rights orientation of African Americans, but it will lend legitimacy to the political right.  Check it out

Also read this commentary in Prodigal Sheep.

I was an early adopter to the IPod.  In fact I liberated my SO from captivity to Windows (but there are no applications for the Mac) by giving her a IPod.  Now she is now a liberated (and computer virus free) IBook user.

So I have  a few gadgets for my IPod (this one is my second, my first is functioning usefully as a Linux voice recorder.)  I have a connector to plug it into my car radio cassette recorder, and a mike attachment to turn the IPod into a voice recorder.  Since the IPod carries an electonic calendar, address list, and notes I have not needed a PGA for three years.  I never did get that graffiti thing down.    So, I can be sold an useful IPod accessory.

But what the hell is this good for?  Mathew Honan writes: "Is that a joystick in your pocket? Why, yes it is. Levi's announced its new line of RedWire DLX Jeans, available worldwide in fall 2006. The jeans feature a built-in iPod docking cradle, joystick and retractable headphones.

Designed for both men and women, the jeans are designed to be compatible with most iPod systems. A special joystick is built into the jeans' watch pocket, with four-way controls to allow the wearer to play, pause, track forward, track back and adjust the volume control without ever removing the iPod from the pocket.

An iPod docking cradle is housed within a side pocket. Levi's designed the pocket so that the iPod buldge is "virtually eliminated." The cradle has a red conductive ribbon that allows users to remove their iPod from the pocket to view its screen while staying connected. The jeans are machine washable once the iPod is removed.

A white leather patch and joystick, bluffed back pockets with hidden stitching, and minimalist buttons and rivets allude to the iPod's famously pure design."

Since 34 million of IPods were sold last year,  I guess I will have to get used to such announcements.  There was a spartan purity to be a Mac user before the IPod.

January 10, 1908

Mohandas Gandhi, is jailed for the first time, for refusing to register as an Asian in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is released on January 30, 1908.

Some times new Unitarian Universalists are curious about why so many of our congregations consider saving the whales a social justice issue.  Whaling!  Didn't that go out with Melville's generation.  Now days it is just those Japanese who take a few whales as  a cultural delicacy, right?

Wrong!    Many thousands of whales are being killed every year, and several species are on the verge of extinction.

The Independent reports that "We cannot be excused our culpability. Almost anyone born before 1960 ate whale - in margarine or ice cream - wore it as a cosmetic or fed it to their pets. The peak of whaling was not the brutal days of Melville's Moby-Dick, but the 1960s when, in one season alone, floating factories "processed" 6,158 blue whales, 17,989 finback whales, 2,108 humpback whales and 2,566 sperm whales - not including the thousands killed by the Russians, unreported to the International Whaling Commission (IWC). The whale, too, was a victim of the Cold War. "
Read the Independent report

Is Micheal Moore's vision of a more democratic, more inclusive United States distorted by white privilege?  Kenyon Farrow & Kil Ja Kim seem to think so, they write:

"[W]e think Michael Moore is a white nationalist. . . .

Some will be confused by our use of white nationalism since it's a term usually reserved for "extremist" organizations. To the contrary, we consider white nationalism to be normalized in US social relations since by white nationalism we mean the project of nation building that is driven by the experiences and history of white people. White nationalism, however, is more than just being white-centric, per se. Rather, white nationalism is the project of maintaining or expanding the white nation-whether established along state lines or as socially created communities or both-in ways that reflect the anxieties, fears, dread and aspirations of white people. As such, in a white nationalist discourse, whiteness and US civil society as well as the racialized and sexualized project of citizenship that maintains both are not confronted. Instead the point of departure for a white nationalist approach is: what stands in white people's way of being able to claim the nation as rightfully theirs? A white nationalist project therefore is fixated with what government forces, "subversiveness" from below or shifts in the global economy threaten the rights of the white citizenry.

I find this critique of Moore challenging, because if he is engaged in revisioning the white nation state then Unitarian Universalists need to probe deeply into the vision behind our social justice statements and resolutions.  Does this critique extend to Unitarian Universalism?  Kenyon Farrow & Kil Ja Kim's complete critique of Moore can be found on

Model Minority: A Guide To Asian American Empowerment.

Paul Dorn writes:  "As with many features of life in the US, transportation is rife with class contradictions. National transportation policy, especially since WWII, has effectively been controlled by GM, Exxon, and their associates (not coincidentally the biggest cabal of capitalist villains on the planet). These corporate interests have used their considerable political influence to ensure that highways get funded and transit systems don't, creating an extensive system of subsidies to encourage driving and discourage alternatives. The automobile-centered US transportation system has been created to maximize profits, not to enhance personal mobility.

The prioritization of automobiles by government transportation planners has had numerous detrimental effects, with the most damaging impacts borne by poor and working class people." 

Paul has a good outline of some of the distortions that our dependence on automobiles has introduced into our way of life.

I am becoming convinced that the "moral value" that religious liberals must proclaim to the world is that one can not achieve just ends by unjust means.  The idea that one can "defend freedom" by violating the rights of citizens is just as absurd as the notion that one can install "Iraqi freedom" by invasion and mass violence against the civilian population.  Peace can only be achieved by non-violence,  and justice can only result from just works.

Columnist Bob Herbert in today's New York Times argues that G.W. Bush has ignored the wise counsel of Edward R. Murrow, who memorably told us, "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."
He continues: "few things are more important than making sure that a president with a demonstrated tendency to abuse the powers of his office is not allowed to lay the foundation for the systematic surveillance of the American people.  For a president - any president - to O.K. eavesdropping on U.S. citizens on American soil without a warrant is an abomination. First, it's illegal - and for very good reasons. Spying on the populace is a giant step toward totalitarianism. In the worst-case scenario, it's the nightmare of Soviet-style surveillance."

The idea of taking concrete steps to remedy and to prevent discrimination - in employment, housing, education and access to programs - for all historically marginalized and oppressed racial and cultural groups and for women originated in the 1960s. It was modeled on the GI bill of rights and other programs to support veterans. In the 1970s affirmative action programs were instituted to include people with disabilities.

Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way in the 1967: "This is a day which demands new thinking and the reevaluation of old concepts. A society that has done done something special against the Negro for hundreds of year must now do something special for him, in order to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis." Unitarian Universalists have supported affirmative action to eliminate discrimination and advance equality for four decades. Beginning in the 1970s Unitarian Universalists extended affirmative action to overcome discrimination based on sexual orientation. The second and sixth principles are wishful thinking without a commitment to affirmative action.

Affirmative action programs have been among the most effective instruments in deconstructing institutional racism. But those who are privileged by racism have raised many counter arguments seeking to discredit affirmative action.

It was argued that affirmative action constituted some kind of reverse discrimination. Manning Marable effectively answers that argument: "Given the fact that the average white household's net worth is ten times that of a black families, and that the overwhelming majority of leaders in business, government, banking and the media are upper-class white males, the argument that whites suffer "reverse discrimination" is absurd. Justice demand affirmative action based on race and gender to address continuing patterns of inequality in America."Some of the anger generated against affirmative action stems from illusions stemming from the ideology of Whiteness as Kenneth B. Clark pointed out: "The illusion of classlessness among whites led them to believe that all whites had opportunities to succeed until blacks came along. every psychologists knows there are individual preferences in every group. Every white applicant for say, a policeman's job, believing he'd get a job or promotion were it not for affirmative action, is engaging in a fascinating sort of idiocy."

Another objection has been raised is that somehow affirmative action confers a stigma, that the woman or minority who has a job has it not because they are qualified, but because they benefit from affirmative action. Answering that objection is Andrew Hacker "How, it is asked, can people go through life, knowing that they have been hired not on their inherent talents, but to fill some quota or to satisfy appearances? Not surprisingly, white people seem to do most of the worrying about this apparent harm to black self-esteem. In fact, there is little evidence that those who have been aided by affirmative action feel many doubts or misgivings. For one thing, most of them believe that they are entitled to whatever opportunities they have received . . . . Nor should it be forgotten what feelings of unworthiness seldom plague white Americans who have profited from more traditional forms of preferment." [How many Veterans complain about Veterans preferences?]

G.W. Bush continues to assert that he has the right to thwart the laws. Charlie Savage reported in the January 4th edition of the Boston Globe of that President has issued "a ''signing statement" . . . declaring that he will view the interrogation limits (in the recently passed torture ban) in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said".

But leaders of his own Party in the Senator publicly rebuked Bush's stance. Charlie Savage writes in the Boston Globe of January 5th: "Three key Republican senators yesterday condemned President Bush's assertion that his powers as commander in chief give him the authority to bypass a new law restricting the use of torture when interrogating detainees.
John W. Warner Jr., a Virginia Republican who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, issued a joint statement rejecting Bush's assertion that he can waive the restrictions on the use of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment against detainees to protect national security.

''We believe the president understands Congress's intent in passing, by very large majorities, legislation governing the treatment of detainees," the senators said. ''The Congress declined when asked by administration officials to include a presidential waiver of the restrictions included in our legislation. Our committee intends through strict oversight to monitor the administration's implementation of the new law."

Separately, the third primary sponsor of the detainee treatment law, Senator Lindsey O. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told the Globe in a phone interview that he agreed with everything McCain and Warner said ''and would go a little bit further."

''I do not believe that any political figure in the country has the ability to set aside any . . . law of armed conflict that we have adopted or treaties that we have ratified," Graham said. ''If we go down that road, it will cause great problems for our troops in future conflicts because [nothing] is to prevent other nations' leaders from doing the same."

David Golove, a New York University law professor who specializes in executive power issues, said the senators' statements ''mean that the battle lines are drawn" for an escalating fight over the balance of power between the two branches of government.
''The president is pointing to his commander in chief power, claiming that it somehow gives him the power to dispense with the law when he's conducting war," Golove said. ''The senators are saying: 'Wait a minute, we've gone over this. This is a law Congress has passed by very large margins, and you are compelled and bound to comply with it. "

Articles found at:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0104-02.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0105-01.htm

"Why bother?"  What difference does "doing theology" make to Unitarian Universalism and to liberal religion in general?  If we are content with the present state of our faith community,  then "doing theology" is sort of like having dessert, a great addition to our life, but not essential.

The first source of our discontent that motivates us to do theology are challenges to religious liberalism.  People ask questions that we can't answer without going back to the sources of religious liberalism and the best practices of  our community.  To "do theology" for the purpose of apologetics, (explaining the tenets of the tradition in the light of challenges) is a commonplace in Unitarian Universalist publishing and preaching.  We witness "why I am a UU" and we can explain why freedom is better than coercion, and why pluralism challenges us to grow to include the other,  but for the most part apologetics is conservative.  It helps our community understand itself and it aids the process of adopting new members into the existing community.

  Theology can either serve the status quo, or it can provide a vision for transformation.  I am convinced that religious liberalism faces new challenges and that the old answers do not suffice, because we must change to meet these challenges.  I am not content with the present state of  our faith community.  Thus for me apologetics is not sufficient, we need theology that envisions a new way of being religious liberals.  I have no interest in continuing to do  theology that serves our present way of being religious liberals, and I do not experience it as a loss that such theology is in crisis.  Such theology rationalizes Unitarian Universalism's privatism, and isolation from social realities.

In subsequent essays I will comment on some of the Unitarian Universalist "liberation" theologies, theologies of transformation,  and theologies that envision new ways of being in relationship with one another that are contributing to the renewal of our faith community.  For those readers who are anxious for examples of such work, I suggest that they check out some of the books on my sidebar. Some are by Unitarian Universalist authors, some are not.  Such is dialectic that is theology.

Jodie Janella Horn writes: " I have developed a recurring fantasy of taking President Bush, grabbing him by the hair and slamming his face on his desk repeatedly while screaming, "Family values? I'll show you family values. I'm moving to Canada so I can afford to have a family." Hell hath no fury like a lioness without cubs.

She explores the findings of a new book that exposes the societal and financial reasons that today's twenty- and thirty somethings are finding it nearly impossible to stay afloat. (see below.)

Horn writes that many young people do not see the solutions to their problems in politics,  and given the way the two parties have been working for the last three decades they are right.  But with the same amount of energy one would invest in moving to Canada (another of her fantasy solutions) and trying to start her life over there, she and others could make a significant change in how this country is governed.  Being a citizen is not a spectator sport.

"Strapped : Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead" (Tamara Draut)

Image.  Family values begins at home.  MoveOn  Library.

James Luther Adams related the story of the oral examinations at the Harvard Divinity School when he was a student.  It seems that the professors always asked "what is a prophet" and the students had learned that way to respond to that question was to begin  with "one who cries doom."  When I was young, doom meant thermonuclear war,  a scenario that is still possible, but which requires more imagination to conjure up what would cause the final conflict.  Crying doom today is to talk about the melting of the ice in Greenland.

The polar ice is melting, water in the Atlantic is becoming warmer and less salty, raising the possibility that the Gulf Stream will be degraded, bringing catastrophe to Western Europe whose people have come to depend on the heat from the Gulf Stream.

The year 2005 brought  record heat waves in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.  North Africa and Europe experienced heat and drought.  Canada and Australia had record hot summers.  And then there was that warm, warm ocean.

The 2005 Hurricane season officially ended five weeks ago, but there were several tropical storms in December.  It was a record year, we ran out of names on the official list, and we had to resort to the Greek alphabet.  Which raises the question, what about next year?  Do we have Zeta II to distinguish it from Zeta I. 

Being an optimist, I have a hard time crying Doom.  But the evidence is mounting, we need to commit to a sustainable future.  We need to rid our capitals of politicians that worship the false gods of corporate power and expediency and realize once again that the earth does not belong to us, we belong to her.

Micheal McCarthy writes a nice roundup of 2005 as a year when we came to realize that climate change was happening in a neighborhood near by.

Rachel Neumann writes that "despite Bush's dismal approval ratings, the war of the frames -- how we talk about the big news and big ideas in the culture sphere -- was won by the conservatives in 2005. Think of the catch phrases of the year: The 'War on Terrorism,' 'Intelligent Design,' the 'War on Christmas,'even 'cut and run'"

Neuman zeros in on five issues that progressives can take the initiative around to help clarify the issues so that the real majority of democratic and fair minded people can defeat the theocratic coalition gathered around Bush.  One of the most interesting parts of her essay for Unitarian Universalists is her argument that in the debate between the frames "life" versus "choice" most people will choose life over the abstract freedom that the supporters of reproductive freedom have held up.  She points out "that  'choice' was not always the key factor in determining whether they have abortions; often economic, social, personal or other factors they didn't have control over forced their decisions. Yet despite a new urgency to protect reproductive rights, progressives still flounder when it comes to how to talk about it."

Religious liberals can make a contribution for democracy, and for our values by learning to communicate our vision for a fair and democratic society.