Long, Dark Tea Party of the Soul

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I remember a time when it was considered bad taste for politicians to utilize their religion to garner votes. Crass and vulgar, it was considered an impropriety not unlike bribery – offering power in exchange for support. Two for tea, and tea for two. Elect me and I’ll make America a Christian nation again, i.e., in my own image. What perhaps bothers me the most about this culture is its deep-rooted arrogance in co-opting history, decorum, even the very imago dei itself. The lie in the service of the truth is a very powerful weapon. When a case is erected on a house of cards, architects must be careful indeed.

A very ancient image for the king was that of the shepherd. This is not surprising since the early kings were not afraid to confess to being gods, and characters like Dumuzi, originally a man, later became divine. And Dumuzi was a shepherd. Sheep are seldom classed among the most intelligent of mammals, being natural followers rather than leaders. When a sheep with the right stuff led the flock, he reserved the right to claim divinity.

The same dynamic is at work in Tea Party mentality. Although the leaders would be swift to deny – the truth is in the denials – that they are anything but humble servants, old ideas die hard. Civilization was built around the idea that leaders got their mojo from on high. Kings were only gods in disguise. Modern politicians are Joe the Plumber in aspect, but Belial under the skin.

Dumuzi leading a follower to a Tea Party?

Trite Lite

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Fresh out of that improbable world called Nashotah House, I was introduced to a jarring concept while in Oshkosh: a Hasidic rapper called Matisyahu. The strange image brewed in my head did not match the reality of this persona, but the very concept of a religious conservative engaging in protest music just didn’t seem to fit. I make no claims to musical expertise, but I did grow up in the 60’s and 70’s, and I know authentic protest when I hear it. Rap began as a countercultural rebellion, and I knew age had its gray fingers wrapped around me when a friend in grad school claimed that rap was “the end of civilization as we know it.” Civilization didn’t end, it simply evolved.

Rap started to become mainstream, as happens to all radical movements when they become “cool” and the aging performers join their aged fans. Then along comes Hi-Caliber, the pathetic Republican attempt to appeal to the hip, the young, the impressionable. The Tea Party rapper (Zac the Rapper?) inveighs his tired message that progress is bad, privileging the wealthy is good, for the Bible tells me so. And the public sips it in. As a person who can’t help but overthink things, it alarms me how trite answers are easily accepted by so many people. If a person stops to think about the implications of issues, the simple solutions proffered by Tea Partiers simply don’t solve anything, no matter how many rappers, twitterers, or ravers they get on their side. Rather than exercise mental rigor, most voters see the shiny glitz and pull the voting booth curtain. Perhaps my friend was right after all.

I have to face the fact that I’m aging into a guy who casts a nostalgic, longing glance back to the sixties of my youth with a sentimental eye. The cardboard-cutout world of the 1950s seems that it was insubstantial, staged even, compared to the psychedelic colors I first saw through childhood’s wondering gaze. I heard protesters on the radio and saw them on television while being raised in a conservative environment. And even though I never personally rebelled, being the Bible-reading type, I secretly admired those who had the courage to challenge the social evils of the day and damn the consequences. Now I switch on the radio and hear conservative fat-cats clipping out pithy rhymes upholding the man. Where is the authenticity? It all makes me want to turn on, tune in, and drop out.

Authentic Republican wrapper

Thoughts Off de Waal

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Although Frans de Waal’s Our Inner Ape was published half a decade ago, the monograph remains terribly relevant. I gave some primary impressions of the book last week, but one section has remained firmly in my head and has mingled with all the harsh rhetoric in the news about health care reform in the United States. Asking the question of whether Homo sapiens are still evolving biologically, de Waal withholds his final opinion on the matter, but he points out that statistics indicate Americans are falling behind much of the rest of the developed world in terms of general health. This he ascribes to the competition inherent in a free market economy that favors the best health care only to the wealthy while the average citizen is offered substandard options. The numbers bear him out on this – he notes that on the standards utilized to measure general health, the United States is not even in the top 25 industrial nations.

With the conviction of a true prophet, de Waal notes that privatization of health care has led to a precarious imbalance in medical care in the United States, where the top 1 percent of citizens has more income to spend than the bottom 40 percent combined. This, he believes, is because we have lost sight of the altruism inherent in apedom. Although the great apes are endangered (ironically, by their overly greedy genetic cousins) their societies show no such disparity. An ape family will assist a weakened or feeble member and give it extra care to ensure that it is offered a life as comfortable as possible. They do not discard the fragile and “expendable” members. Republicans, however, wave placards trying to shout down basic health coverage for the poor.

Does biological evolution continue among the human species? Have we stopped natural selection’s eternally ticking clock? Only time will tell. It does seem, however, that the very Bible pounded by the Religious Right (health care reform’s greatest opponent) would argue that the apes got it right. We should care for the poor, disadvantaged, and underrepresented. While the Tea Party belles are busy trying to rewrite history with America founded as a Christian nation they daintily wipe their mouths on the pages of the very book they treasure so deeply and claim as their authentic heritage.

Great Balls of Fire

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Gnu from WikiCommons

“I looked, and there came a great earthquake; the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth…” (Revelation 6.12-13a). With all the apocalyptic events of the past few days, some religious pundits are eagerly awaiting a rider on an extraterrestrial white horse with a light-saber jutting from his mouth. As the smoke from Eyjafjallajokull rises like a funeral pyre, a great green bolide streaks across Midwestern skies (landing, no doubt, near Nashotah House, among Wisconsin’s most paranormal locations), and this all follows an earthquake in China. More impressive than the snowpocalypse of this past winter, but less worrisome than the abrupt ending of the Mayan calendar.

All of this fuss reminded me of the way 1987 began. Having grown up in humble circumstances, one of my favorite pastimes was jigsaw puzzles. As my brother and I sat piecing one together on New Year’s Day while home on break, suddenly a loud boom shook our ramshackle house. Now I grew up in a small town built around a large refinery, and stories of the cataclysmic explosion that was sure to come raced through my head as my brother and I went outside to see the great pall of greasy black smoke that was certain to accompany such a disaster. We were met by clear skies and neighbors standing in a confused huddle in the streets. The news that evening reported that a fireball had been seen racing across the daytime skies of Ohio and Pennsylvania before it exploded some distance north of us. I’d just experienced my first bolide. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it was an event I’ve never forgotten.

The message I take from these many natural occurrences is that humanity is small. We imagine ourselves to be gods of our domain, controlling our environment and making it more to our liking. But we are not in control. Revelation was not predicting the end of the world, but was attempting to reassert a sense of control for people suffering from a perceived godless enemy. Today we still think of such events as a sign of God’s anger. I’m not sure what God is supposed to be angry about, unless he has happened to drop in on a Tea Party and heard how his name is being taken in vain.

Not My Cup of Tea

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The cutesy and puckish title of “Tea Party” is intended to sound whimsical among a group of political activists who lack imagination and creativity. They wear biblical-sized blinders that block out all enlightenment, trying to appear trendy and radical when what they really want is a return to the Dark Ages. Trying to make turning the clock back on progress chic and sexy, they stand for old-fashioned selfishness and the preservation of privilege for those who deserve preferential treatment – others just like them.

They grab headlines and limelight. So diametrically opposed to the progress that the real Tea Party (in Boston, 1773) strove for – progress against the privileged and mighty holding down those at disadvantage, the Tea Party movement seems to have convinced the media that it is worthy of their absconded moniker. Once again the Bible finds itself slave to an outlook. Ironically, Christians who look to the Bible as an unchanging anchor in modern society have no desire to return to the dietary restrictions and apparel requirements of yesteryear. They do not comprehend the vast gulf in morality outlooks that separate flat-earthers from space-age technocrats. A disconnect that would short-circuit the most robust processor drives their fantasy-world desire for a yesterday than never really existed.

What can a concerned biblical scholar do? Is it possible to force a conscientiously willful party that disregards facts and history to face reality? Perhaps the response should be that of the eighteenth-century Bostonians: board their ships of privilege and jettison their valued cargo utilized to create and uphold a system of abuse. Should that happen, we would soon see front-page pictures of Boston Harbor bobbing with saturated Bibles.

Mutiny on the Bountiful?