Eric Folkerth's Blog

Right on Wright

2008-04-30T11:56:02Z

Tonight, my wife Dennise and my ten-year-old daughter, Maria, were watching TV, and some clips of Rev. Jeremiah Wright came on from his National Press Club appearance last night.

Among other things, these were clips where he was again blaming the government for AIDS, and calling American soldiers terrorists.

The following is a mostly verbatim transcription of the conversation that ensued...

"Mom, was Rev. Wright alive when Martin Luther King got shot?"

"Yes, Maria, he was."

"I think he's still angry about that. And I think he's probably also still mad about that gas that makes you cry...."

"You mean 'tear gas?'"

"Yeah, tear gas....from on the marches in Atlanta, Georgia.* And I think he's probably mad about people having to sit at the back of the bus too."

"It could be, sweetie."

"Mom, I think he needs to talk to a counselor. Maybe he could talk to Ms. Wilson."

"Who is that, Maria?"

"She's our counselor at school. She says that before you get angry and say mean things you should try screaming into a pillow, or even screaming into a mirror..."

"Into a mirror?"

"Well," said Maria, "actually I made that last part up."

* (we assume she meant Selma, Alabama...)

(Originally, posted here

Progressive People Should Support Progressive Religion (A Pastor's Perspective)

2008-03-21T14:11:16Z

The controversy concerning Barack Obama and his church has inspired me to unpack several issues related to politics and religion this week, as I see those issues through the lens of my experience as the pastor of a church. I thought I'd tackle one more today.

One thing I hope progressive people of faith might learn from this whole story is the following:

It's extremely helpful to progressive causes for progressive people to support progressive churches/mosques/synagogues. And if you are a progressive person of faith, consider doing so yourself.

(For the purposes of brevity, I will use the term "church" in parts of this essay. That is my own faith tradition, and a part of why I use it is because I am describing that tradition. But, feel free to substitute "house of worship," or "mosque," or "synagogue" if you so choose...)

I am very, very aware that not all progressive people are people of faith. Some of my best progressive friends are atheists or agnostics of great intellect and heart. (In fact, I have told people for years that I often feel more comfortable in their presence than I do with certain ultraconservative Christians!!!) So, from the start, I realize I am not preaching to the whole progressive choir.

But I might argue that this makes the issue all the more poignant in progressive circles: we start with a much smaller "pool" when it comes to potential congregants, because of the very nature of the progressive movement...thus making the individual decisions of those who are faith-inclined have even more prescient.

In a sense, Obama's situation has stood as an example for this: very few of our most public "progressive" leaders actually support progressive churches. Which is, it seems to me, a part of why everyone is so surprised and interested in this this particular story. Obama's church, the whole world learned this week, is a very unique thing in American life: a mega-sized church with a decidedly progressive theology, social outreach, and witness.

On the whole (I know there are exceptions...) progressive churches tend to be smaller than conservative ones. They tend to be harder to find in many communities. And they don't tend to toot their own horn. (Often feeling downright deadset against it!)

As we have heard Obama say in the past few days, he stayed at Trinity Church for a series of complicated reasons --none having to do with agreeing with his pastor's incendiary rhetoric-- and much of it having to do Trinity Church's progressive vision of what "church" is.

This observation that many progressive leaders do not support progressive churches is not based on any scientific research. So, don't sue me (or, deluge me with evidence to the contrary...I'm sure it's out there) But Obama's situation has drawn our interest, because of how unique it is.

Let me be clear that I am not talking about all rank and file progressive people. I am talking specifically about people in leadership:

-- Party leaders
-- Party activists
-- Elected officials
-- Leaders of causes and interest groups.

My observation is that, in many cases, these persons tend to belong to houses of worship that, by any stretch of the imagination, would be considered "middle-of-the-road," or even "conservative!"

Perhaps this is because this where their family feels comfortable. Perhaps it's because in larger, more middle-of-the-road congregations, they are more likely to find many activities for their kids and youth. (BTW, this is backhanded criticism of many progressive churches: that they don't focus on the "basics" of congregation life enough to attract young families.)

In some case, they have made the decision to attend high profile churches in their communities, so that they can "see and be seen."

But all of these decisions have unfortunate side-efffects. They tend to dilute the power and influence of these folks on those congregations (Small fish. Big sea) and deny progressive faith communities badly needed financial and human resources. (Small sea. Dying coral reef?)

This also allows greater society to develop a skewed view of people of faith. The assumption is that "they're all conservative."

In fact, I hear this over and over...either the traditional assumption that all Christians are Bible-thumping conservatives...or the shock and awe when they find us and exclaim: "I didn't know a church like yours existed!!"

I blame the media for a part of this too, by the way. Far too often, when world-events happen, the media runs to the same mega-churches/conservative-churches, to ask the pastors for comment. Sound byte in hand, they assume that they have heard from the "Christian perspective."

When the war began five years ago, we had many media outlets coming to us for comment, because we were one of the largest churches in town with a significant number of members and staff who supported peace instead. Wednesday, they came back again.

But, know what? We've hardly seen them in between. Very seldom. (I'm talking TV especially. Print journalists have been much better..)

Despite all of the crucial issues moral issues of the day, time and time again, they have only gone back to the well of their old familiar mega-church sources.

This is a major reason why many in our society just assume that all religious folks are conservative religious folks.

Some folks might say, "Well you are suggesting that we must be like the conservatives!!"

And, in a sense? You're right. This is sort of what I'm suggesting. And I get that not everybody will agree with this. (It is the progressive movement, after all. What...uniformity of opinion? Please...)

Conservative people, and politicians have, for decades, understood the unique synergy of the moral voice and social action that can take place by supporting conservative churches. This is not all born out of sinister or crass political calculation. Much of it is born out of understand the common cause that can take place between organized religion and people of similar social outlook.

Despite the clear ties to organized religion in some of the most recognized progressive voices in history (MLK, Desmond Tutu to name just two) the progressive movement has tended to keep religion at arms length; leading Jim Wallis to suggest that "the left doesn't get it."

So, having said all this, let me suggest some things to look for in a good progressive house of worship. I'm going to use examples from our church to illustrate...again, not to imply that we're the only (or best) game in our town, but just to remind folks that there really *are* alternatives.

Look to connect to a place of worship where:

-- The congregation values education and study is valued, non-literal interpretation of the scriptures is assumed, and you don't have to check your brain at the door.

-- Dissent is valued and appreciated.

-- The congregation has gone on record with a mission statement that reflects progressive values. (You can find ours on the main page of our website...)

-- The congregation openly welcomes a marginalized group. Our congregation, for example, is somewhere between 30-40 percent gay and lesbian. We pride ourselves on being a "blended church," not a gay or straight one.

-- The congregation tackles tough issue of the day, like the war, the environment, and immigration. Our "Church in Society" Commission has written a series of position papers on the issues, to challenge the whole church to get more involved. (If you're interested, you can read them here)

-- The congregation "walks the walk" by supporting progressive causes. They march for immigrants rights. They march against the war. They support things like Earth Day. (Every year, we line up all of our Hybrid cars, and have what we call "The Northaven Car Show.") Perhaps the congregation has direct ministries of social action...food pantries, community centers, etc....

These are just some suggestions of what to look for in a progressive church. And note! None of them had to do with the pastor!

In my first diary this week, I suggested that Obama might have stayed at Trinity Church for a variety of reason, virtually none of which had anything to do with the pastor. In that essay, I suggested that to "church hop" assumes an unfortunate and consumerist view of religion.

I still believe that. I am not suggesting church "hopping" or church "shopping."

But, I do believe that when progressive people first choose the house of worship they will support, they would do well to support progressive ones.

It could make a real difference to us all.

What Did Jeremiah Wright Intend by "Damning" America? (A Preacher's Perspective)

2008-03-20T13:40:19Z

As preacher and minister myself who occasionally gets grief over the words I choose in sermons, I've been watching the recent controversy over Jeremiah Wright with interest.

Much has been said about Rev. Wright, and especially about his juxtaposition of the popular phrase "God Bless America" with it's obvious alternative.

I'm not going to defend, or even discuss all of the clips that that are out there, and I still cannot condone the one in question here.

But, while I personally believe that in a YouTube world he should have had better sense than to proclaim "God *&$*# America," a careful examination of Bible texts indicates that there may well be times when "damning" a nation, individual, or class of people is exactly what the Bible text originally meant!!

Oftentimes in the Bible, the word "woe" gets translated in places where, it is possible, that the word "damn" (or at least the word "curse") might get closer to the original meaning.

(BTW, this whole discussion assumes that everybody understands that Biblical translation is never an exact science...and that "literal translation" is a phrase that makes no logical sense...)

A great example of this is Luke's version of the "Beatitudes," (Chapter 6) where each "blessed" has an equal and opposite "woe."

"Blessed are you who are poor....woe to you who are rich"
"Blessed are you who are hungry now...woe to you who are full now."

In these cases, as I just mentioned, many scholars believe the original word was *much* stronger than "woe." In fact, "blessing" and "damnation" are clearly more direct opposites than "blessing" and "woe."

One of my own United Methodist Bishops interprets these texts from Luke in exactly this way. (Or, at least he did in this one essay from 2004) Bishop Will Willimon very clearly interprets the text as contrasting twin acts of "blessing" and "damning."

Here's an section from Bishop Willimon's sermon:
"If that were all there was to Jesus' sermon that day, then we might remember it as one of the sweetest sermons ever preached. But then, true to form (Luke 4) Jesus moves from blessing to cursing.

You rich, damn you! You have already "received your consolation." You were good at working the kingdoms of this world to your advantage. Now, in God's kingdom, you shall be cursed.

For those of you who are full, stuffed with all that can be consumed in this culture, having found so many ways to satisfy your gnawing hunger, what more can God do for you? In God's coming kingdom, you shall be damned to emptiness. Wipe that smirk off your face, you drugged, self-satisfied happy ones! There's a new savior in town. Time for tears.

Damn you who are acclaimed and praised, who are asked to write articles for the Century, called to Waco to receive a gold medal for being a top-tier preacher. You carefully weigh your words, being sure never to offend anyone with the truth. That's the way the false prophets preached before you.

He continues by pointing out that this way of preaching would certainly seem challenging to most ears:

"Is this anyway to preach? It's certainly not how I learned to preach. In Not Every Spirit, Christopher Morse demonstrates that the early Christians were persecuted not for what they believed (Jesus Christ is Lord) but for what they refused to believe (Caesar is Lord). We pastors are distinguished not only by what we graciously support, but also by what we condemn. Any homiletic that seeks to make peace with hearers cannot be faithful to the gospel. Ralph Wood pointed out that in the great Barmen Declaration of the Confessing Church in Germany, every credimus, "We believe . . .," is followed by a damnatis, "We reject . . ." Alas, when it came time for the rest of the German church to say "Nein!" it had lost the theological means to know there was even something about the world worth rejecting, as well as lost the courage to say "No!"

You can read the whole thing here:

Again, I am in no way trying to excuse or even defend Rev. Wright. But it is possible that this is what he intended, at least in this one example of the controversial statements we've seen this past week.

Having said that, it seems to me that an audience would need to know that fuller Biblical context (does anybody know if he attempted that kind of textual interpretation in the sermon itself? Has anybody heard the whole sermon?)

And, my personal opinion? Rev. Wright would have done well avoid that kind of incendiary rhetoric altogether.

He surely had to know that "riffing" on the phrase "God Bless America" was a powder keg so explosive that even many supporters would find it offensive.

Prophetic preachers always walk a challenging tightrope between saying things that catch people's attention, and saying things that drive people away.

Prophetic preachers face a challenging tension between being prophetic in a way that calls people to account in ways that moves them to change their lives, and making statements so over-the-top that nobody hears the real message.

Accountable to God; accountable to our own congregations; and increasingly accountable to the entire world (thanks to YouTube); preachers often find that when it comes to choosing their words, they're "damned if they do, and damned if they don't."

A Minister's Statement: Five Years of War

2008-03-19T21:29:16Z

The following are my comments from an interfaith press conference in Dallas this morning....EF

Good morning, and welcome. My name is Eric Folkerth, and I am the senior pastor of this church, Northaven United Methodist Church. We are very pleased that you have all come here this day. It is my job to bring you greeting and welcome, and then to make a few brief comments of my own on the issue of the day: Remembering, and lamenting, the five-year anniversary of the war in Iraq.

We’re honored to host this press conference today, and we want to thank all the clergy who have come to be here this day, to share their thoughts and feelings. I especially want to thank the Dallas Peace Center for being a cosponsor, and the Rev. William McElvaney, who really put all of this together. Through his deep connection to the Dallas religious community of over forty years, and his own deep commitment to peace, Bill was able singlehandedly to gather us all here today...and Bill, for this we are deeply grateful.

This morning, we are pleased to have with us a variety of esteemed religious leaders --Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish-- from our city.

While there are various ways to mark the “anniversary” of this war, it is our belief that religious leaders have a unique, moral perspective to add to our public debate and understanding of the war and its implications. We hope you will be informed by their statement this morning. And after we are done with this gathering, we invite you to our church Atrium, just outside these doors, where each of these person will be available to talk to one on one.

Each of our great religious traditions teaches us that we must remember, and learn from, our past. A part of what our religions teach us is that through remembering our past, we can somehow redeem it through a sense of understanding. And we trust that if we learn from it, we can avoid repeating our mistakes.

Peace is also a major theme of each of the world’s greatest religions, and collectively we clergy here today most certainly lament the lack of peace in our time. As the war drags on, and as human life continues to be lost almost each and every day, the costs of war become staggering and tragic.

As we sit here today in this sanctuary...
-- Almost 4,000 brave American men and women have lost their lives.
-- Tens of thousands have received wounds that will scar them, and challenge them, for the rest of their lives.
-- Countless more American civilians have also died and been wounded too.
-- No less than 80,000 Iraqis have lost their lives.
-- Hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, of refugees have been displaced.

The bottom line is, from a human perspective, this war’s toll is staggering. So, we are here to look back, to offer our spiritual counsel, and to do our best to reflect on what we can learn and what we can do as individuals and people of faith.

-------------------------------------

With that introduction, I would like to offer my own thoughts for the day. And as I began to prepare for this day, my thoughts went back to the beginning of the war and our response then. Northaven Church called its members, and our greater Dallas community, to 48-hours of fasting at the beginning of the war.

Almost 200 people from all over Dallas joined us that night to lament the war, and be thankful for a group of faith-based people they could share their grief with. We broke the fast with a gathering of prayer and lament for the loss of human life.

We grieved the start of the war because so many of us knew, even then, that the war was likely to not only be a strategic mistake, but was already a moral one too. We saw our country making this mistake, and despite our protestations, and the protestations of millions, our country made the mistake anyway.

And this gets to the first major point I’d like to make this morning.

There is a commonly held misconception that all of America supported this war from the start. That is simply not true. Many in our congregation were opposed, as were many other people of faith and conscience across the land. In fact, I would remind us all that barely a month before the war began, Dallas saw the largest peace rally in its history; when almost 5,000 people march in solidarity through downtown to protest the rush to war. That day, I was pleased and honored to march with no less than 200 self identified United Methodist who opposed this war.

To the media and to our citizens: we should carefully listen to the voices of those who have reservations. We should not allow the drum beat of war, the zeal of patriotic songs, to cause us to lose our hearing. Within our government, and certainly in our religious communities, many expressed their grave doubts about this war from the start.

One of the great spiritual truths of all of our religious traditions is this: Violence begets violence. This is a simple, elegant, and horrifying truth. It is flows out from one of the bedrock religious principles in all faiths: that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. That religious truth is really more like a law of nature: Others WILL do unto us as we do unto them. Violence begets violence....love begets love.

The violence of the war in Iraq has fanned the flames of terrorism in ways that are completely unsurprising to people of faith. People of faith are saddened, but not surprised, that terrorism has risen to all time high levels, and that Iraq itself has become a breeding ground, a nursery if you will, for the next generation of terrorist. All of this was completely predictable by religious wisdom available five years ago (in truth, centuries ago): violence begets violence.

Many Christians, including myself, believe that there is such a thing as a just war. But this war, from it’s inception, was not a just war. There was no aggression that justified it. There were other diplomatic means that could have avoided it. Just war theory, and our faith, tell us that if there are any other options besides war, we should take them.

Another religious-based truth we have learned from this war is that the mere talk of war causes governments to conceal the truth. We know now that our country had some intelligence which should have slowed the march to war. We know now that Saddam Hussein covered up the fact that his Weapons of Mass Destruction were gone, because he was afraid. He was afraid of losing his power as an evil dictator. Friends, religious faith teaches us that fear will drive us to do terrible things. We knew this ahead of the war as well.

The fears of some in our nation collided with the fears of an evil dictator, to truly tragic ends. Religious faith teaches us that we should never make major decisions based on fear, but on faith.

I say all the previous points not out of a sense of false pride, or moral self-righteousness, but as a desperate plea to our nation to take note of what we can learn from this war.

So, what do we do?

Certainly, we must pray for our troops, and pray for the people of Iraq. We must use our sense of faith and hope --our sense that peace is possible-- to build bridges that have collapsed. The way to peace the way of prayer. It involves a confession of our failures, and a willingness to move a new direction. We must rebuild trust the trust of other nations.

I call on people everywhere to pray. Pray for peace. But turn your prayers into action. Let those in our government know that, on religious grounds, on moral grounds, you want to see this war end. Support our troops through charities that aid wounded veterans.

For us Christians, here in Holy Week, approaching Easter, we hear the message that life can come from death. Therefore, by working to prevent future unjust wars; by giving generously to help wounded veterans; by giving generously to support the displaced people of Iraq; by calling on our political leaders to end this unjust war; and finally, by learning from our past, we can still redeem the suffering of this war and prevent the sin of future injustice.

Why Did Barack Obama Stay at Trinity Church? (Thoughts on Church Membership)

2008-03-18T00:07:06Z

I was at a family birthday party this afternoon, and as people from my wife's family gathered in the cool afternoon breeze, under tall shade trees, I heard one of her cousins ask a question that's been on the minds of many this past week. It's a question concerning Barack Obama and his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The question was: If Barack Obama knew those were the views of his pastor, why didn't he just leave?

The cousin was sort of asking the question hypothetically. But since she also knew I was the pastor of a church, I could tell there was some curiosity to know what I thought about the subject. I tried to answer the question best I could. On the way home just now, I knew I would need to blog a more complete answer.

Before I delve into my answer, let me be very clear that like so many others, I find the brief clips of Rev. Wright that have surfaced this week deeply troubling. I actually visited Trinity Church on a Sunday back in the early 1990s. And while the theology was different from my own church of the time, I found nothing at all offensive in what I heard that day.

However, I do feel that Rev. Wright went over the line in his overly personal discussion of Hillary Clinton in the one video clip. I also believe that, while the God of the Bible does talk about "blessing" and "curse" for the nations, surely Rev. Wright must have known that invoking "God Bless America," and contrasting it with damnation of any kind, was inviting a reaction so strong that many listeners would not be able to hear that central message. It shows questionable judgment on his part, in my opinion.

So, I can agree wholeheartedly with the criticisms, and rejection, of the short video clips currently making the rounds of the MSM.

Having offered that, back to the question: Why didn't Barack Obama just leave Trinity Church

The very question presupposes a troubling assumption about contemporary American religious life. The assumption is that churches --even whole religions themselves-- are just one more consumerist item to be used and discarded on whim. Further, the question assumes that a person's relationship to a congregation is entirely dependent upon who the "preacher" of the church is.

More and more Americans operate under these assumptions. In fact, a new Pew Study, out just last month, finds that 44 percent of all Americans have either switched religious traditions, or abandoned them altogether during their adult life.

Although this is a new study, it's old news in the church world. For more than a decade ago now, many churches have seen themselves as a part of a "competitive market" for members. Churches realize that denominational loyalty is at an all time low, and that denominational names mean virtually nothing. So, many have stopped using their denomination's names. (We even do this at "Northaven Church")

In this environment, church leaders feel driven to "market" to potential members, and their ministry decisions are increasingly led by "what members want."

If members want "Christian Aerobics," offered three times a week....by God, some church somewhere will offer it!!

If members want a worship service on a Tuesday afternoon at 4 pm...by God, some church somewhere will offer that too!!

Whether you think this change is good or bad, it clearly is a move toward a more consumerist view of religion.

A Wal-Mart nation births "megachurches" that learn to set goals using the same corporate mindset.

So, it's into this environment that people ask "Why did Barack Obama stay?" As if "staying" at a church you have any disagreement with whatsoever is insane.

You wouldn't keep shopping at Wal-Mart if they didn't have the low price guarantee, would you?

I don't know why Barack Obama and his family was attracted to, and stayed at,Trinity Church. I have heard him say publicly that it was because he was impressed by the church's ministry to the local community. In fact, a visit to Trinity's website shows an impressive array of community ministries, dealing with real-life issues like addictions, cancer, poverty, etc.

It could be that Barack Obama decided long ago that the ministry and community-life of Trinity Church outweighed any ten second soundbites he heard now and then. I don't want to speak for him, since I don't know him personally. But it seems quite plausible.

Maybe Obama views his church as more than a consumer commodity. If so, then I commend him. And I personally wish more people would stop choosing churches the way they choose a shaving cream.

That same consumerist view is also being applied to how Americans view their pastors too. To hear many people talk, whether or not a person is comfortable with his or her pastor sometimes makes or breaks whether they stay tied to a specific church.

But, know what's funny about this? Study after study shows the exact opposite. Studies show something quite humbling for professional preachers like me. They show that Americans rate "the sermon" as a mere 5 percent of their total reason for visiting a church!!!
(Trust me, this is very humbling...)

Studies find that people choose churches because of the friendliness of the members, or the ministries of outreach, or the Sunday School program, or the music program, etc, etc etc... And these factors, it seems, are far more important to them than the sermon.

So, even though people are questioning how Obama could stay at a church when he disagreed with his pastor (and insinuating a lack of judgment on his part for doing so...) studies show that millions of Americans apparently do just that every day!

I have one more theory on this too. That theory is that how free a person feels to disagree with a pastor may depend upon the theological stance of the church. This is my own theory here...

More conservative churches --Bible churches, post-modern churches, etc-- often tend to put the pastor at the center of congregational life. The pastor's authority is central to the church itself. Sometimes, the pastor IS the church in the minds of the people. This could explain some of what we've been reading in blogs the past week. Conservative religious people find it much more difficult to disagree with a pastor, and still stay with a church.

So, in a real sense, although others are troubled by the idea that Obama might stay at a church where he disagreed with the pastor, I find this a reason for hope. I find that it might well mean that Obama has far deeper reasons to stay at that church....like his ties to the members, his daughter's ties to a particular ministry....or his love for Trinity's clear missional focus.

Again, I know nothing about Obama's reasons for staying. I am simply suggesting that it's quite plausible that he had good reasons, and that the question about leaving is built on a consumerist mentality that many Christians reject.

Having said all of the preceding, let me close by sharing a bit about my setting....

The church I pastor is a theologically progressive congregation in Dallas, Texas. Many of our members have been involved in the great social movements of the past 50 years. During Vietnam War, our pastor was one of the first to speak against it in our city. Our members were extremely involved in the Civil Rights movement. More recently, we have been involved in the struggle for the full inclusion of GLBT persons in the United Methodist Church. Some of our members assisted in the Camp Casey movement in Crawford, Texas several years back. And I myself have felt free to preach sermons against what I feel was an unjust war in Iraq from even before its beginning five years ago this week.

This does not mean that all our members have agreed with all that activism, or even with my own sermons in the current day. Some disagree with me. Others disagree with other members. I like to joke that our church has around 600 members, and around 650 opinions. (Some argue both sides just for the heck of it...)

Our members appreciate serious theological inquiry. Our members like a good sermon, and will tell me when they think they've heard one.

And! They will tell me when they feel they haven't heard one too! Members have written me members about my preaching style. They have written me letters when they feel I have crossed the line. Some have written, for example, to express concern about sermons I've preached on immigration....where I have called for a more open and accepting attitude toward immigrants. Others got tired of sermons about the war a few yeas back, especially during the first years of the war. (We lost one gay couple who said they simply could not abide what they believed to be sermons overly critical of the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq. That was one couple out of hundreds...)

When I preach on a controversial subject --especially if its the major thrust of a sermon that day-- I always try to remember to tell the congregation that they are more than free to disagree with me. I think they appreciate that. And I personally think it's heathy for all of us.

Throughout the years, and despite the overall progressive nature of the church (or, maybe because of it!), we've had a vocal minority of Republican members who sometimes disagree with my sermons, and often feel free to tell me so when they do. I have always appreciated this, appreciated the fact that they stay around, and find their continuing presence important helpful and vitally important.

We have Obama fans..Hillary fans...and John McCain fans in our church. And that is good.

One of our Republican members recently told my wife, "We really love the passion of Eric's sermons. I don't often agree with him, but I love the way he preaches."

It's nice to hear that they would stay even when they don't agree with me.

In sum: There are many reasons a person might choose a church, or choose to leave a church. Disagreeing with the pastor, and staying, may not show bad judgment at all. In fact, it just might show someone who is willing to listen views they disagree with, and stay "engaged" anyway.

And in all our faith communities, and in our national political life, that might be a good thing for all of us to have more of.

Military Losses for 20 Years: I play at being Snopes.com

2008-01-21T05:21:29Z

(Originally posted here: Permalink)

Every now and then, an email comes my way that is so wrong, and so un-refuted, that I feel compelled to respond. That happened today, and this blog my reaction. Consider this entry your own personal Snopes.com for the day.

The "issue" is an email I got this morning titled:

"Military Losses for 20 Years"

It was forwarded to me by a cousin of mine who I respect a great deal. No beef with him, in other words. Just a beef with whoever started this insidious chain message.

So that you can truly be informed, I have included the entire email at the end of this blog entry, so you can see the original context for yourself.

The gist of the email is an astounding claim that more military personnel died during the Clinton years than during the George W. Bush presidency.

It cites a government report as the source of information for this claim.

The claim in the email is that during Clinton's presidency, a whopping 13,417 service men and women died. During Bush's tenure, the email claims only 9,016 members of the Armed Forces have died. The clear insinuation is that while everyone thinks the current war has been terrible, things were much worse when Clinton was in the White House.

The email goes on to make the claim that huge numbers of military personnel died during the "reign" of President Jimmy Carter. (BTW, since they aren't royalty, I wasn't aware that our presidents had "reigns.")

The email claims the data it cites is substantiated by a congressional study. And, it even gives a url to the study itself. (Something that gives an air of legitimacy to these kinds of emails...)

Here is the link to the report the email cites.

This email then goes on to editorialize about all of these so-called shocking discoveries:

"These figures indicate that many of our Media & Politicians will pick and choose. They present only those 'facts' which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth. Where do so many of them get their marching-orders for their agenda?"

The "muckraking" email ends with two ominous questions, thrown out to the innocent and fearful patrons of cyberspace:

"Now ask yourself these two questions:
'Why does the mainstream Print and TV Media never print statistics like these?'
and
'Why do the mainstream media hate the web as much as they do?'"

Well, first...I don't know that it ever includes "marching," but I do know whatever "agenda" journalist have starts with editors who are sticklers for...gosh darn it...accurate statistics.

Secondly...they don't print these kinds of claims because these claims are just flat out lies and mistruths.

And, finally....I don't personally believe that the mainstream media "hates" the web, because the web itself gives guys like me the chance to refute this kind of garbage.

The facts are: almost every "fact" in this email is a lie not supported by the documentation the email cites!!!!

I will now unpack this....

First, let's assume the report the email cites is a genuine government report, and is genuinely accurate. I have no idea whether it is or not. But for the sake of argument --for the sake of "fact checking" it's own inner consistency-- assume the backing documents are true.

When you open the .pdf file at the above link, and then go to page ten, you'll find a helpful chart titled:

"Table 4: US Active Military Deaths, 1980 to 2006"

Using a calculator, and amazingly dexterous fingers, I managed to do my own counting. And here are the TRUE numbers:

For the years 1993-2000 (the eight full years of Bill Clinton's presidency)
There were a total of: 7,500 military deaths for those in active duty
(remember: the email claims: 13, 417)

Yes, it's a strangely round number. But it appears to be correct. As Casey Stengel once said, "You could look it up..."

For the years of George W. Bush's presidency 2001-2006
There were a total of: 8,792 military deaths for those in active duty.
(the email claims: 9,016)

Note! The Bush statistic only includes data through 2006, and a footnote admits that the 2006 data is "preliminary." This number does not include any combat deaths for 2007.

As mentioned above, the email goes on to claim that there were 2,392 deaths in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president. The email makes this sound shocking, since Carter won a "Nobel Peace Prize." And, actually, this one number appears to be correct.

However! Even though this is correct, it fails to account for the truth that the largest single year for military deaths since 1980 was during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. The year was 1983, and the total deaths were: 2,465. (Go ahead. "Casey Stengel" it)

Also! Note this unusual factoid: the spam email incorrectly claims this exact same number of deaths (2.465) during 1995 (a Clinton year...surprise, surprise...). This does not appear to be correct. The actual number for 1995 was: 1,040.

----------------------------------------------------

So, why did I write this "correction"?

Well, because we're entering the high-season for politics and dirty tricks. Love or hate her, there is again a "Clinton" the ballot this year. Many people (including many Republicans) are still very concerned about the war.

What makes this kind of email especially insidious is that it provides you a link to check the facts yourself.

It just assumes you won't.

To that end, it's really propaganda. It's a smear campaign, and it's the worst kind of dirty trick.

And even if you later read MY email --where I also exhort you to "check the facts"-- the dissonance between two competing fact claims will cause lot of folks to just shrug their shoulders, complain of "tired brain," and walk away...often with their initial preconceptions still intact.

The facts are these: Many more service men and women have died during six years of GW. Bush's presidency than during eight years of Bill Clinton's.

But for people are naturally inclined to disbelieve these "true" facts, propagandistic email like this allow them to keep their incorrect preconceptions in full force. They then pass those lies on to unwitting friends and family. And the lies take on a life and "truth" all their own, regardless of the "facts".

It's a sinister, and sickly effective, form of "disinformation."

There is a lot at stake here. American men and women are giving their live each day. That is nothing to gloss over or make light of. I am not attempting to do that here, nor am I attempting to make their deaths into a political football. The death of any military person, in any historical age, is tragic. But if we are to honor their memory, the best way to do that is through being truthful about the history of our modern republic.

Once upon a time, Hillary Clinton claimed that a "vast right wing conspiracy" was out to get both her and President Clinton. I've always been skeptical about just how "vast" it really was.

At the same time, these kinds of emails remind us that there are people who do play fast and loose with the facts, and assume most folks are just too stupid to check things out themselves.

The morale of the story for this political season:

Trust, but verify.

The truth is out there.

Just maybe not in an email some guy forwards to you.

Below is the original text of an email sent to Eric on January 20, 2008:

"Subject: Military losses for 20 yrs

Interesting numbers. you can check this by clicking on to the suggested website. Snopes has nothing on this. These figures don't bring back anyone, but the person sending these does make a point about the perception of our military losses and activity. Comments after this were a part of the email sent to me.

Military losses for 20 years

These are some rather eye-opening facts: Since the start of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sacrifice has been enormous. In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 through now, we have lost over 3000 military personnel to enemy action and accidents. As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics: The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2006:

>>1980 .......... 2,392
>>1981 ......... 2,380
>>1984 .......... 1,999
>>1988 .......... 1,819
>>1989 .......... 1,636
>>1990 ......... 1,508
>>1991 .......... 1,787
>>1992 .......... 1,293----------------------------------------------------
>>1993 .......... 1,213
>>1994 .......... 1,075
>>1995 ...........2,465
>>1996 ......... 2,318 Clinton years @13,417 deaths
>>1997 .......... 817
>>1998 ......... 2,252
>>1999 .......... 1,984 -------------------------------------------------
>>2000 .......... 1,983
>>2001 .......... 890
>>2002 .......... 1,007 7 BUSH years @ 9,016 deaths
>>2003 .......... 1,410
>>2004 .......... 1,887
>>2005 ......... 919
>>2006.......... 920 ------------------------------------------------------------

If you are confused when you look at these figures...so was I.

Do these figures mean that the loss from the two latest conflicts in the Middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during Mr. Clinton 's presidency; when America wasn't even involved in a war? And, I was even more confused; when I read that in 1980, during the reign of President (Nobel Peace Prize) Jimmy Carter, there were 2,392 US military fatalities!

These figures indicate that many of our Media & Politicians will pick and choose. They present only those 'facts' which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth. Where do so many of them get their marching-orders for their agenda?

Our Mainstream Print and TV media, and many Politicians like to slant; that these brave men and women, who are losing their lives in Iraq, are mostly minorities! Wrong AGAIN--- just one more media lie! The latest census, of Americans, shows the following distribution of American citizens, by Race:

European descent (White) ....... 69.12%
Hispanic ................................ 12.5%
Black..................................... 12.3%
Asian ...................................... 3.7%
Native American ..................... . 1.0%
Other ...................................... 2.6%

Now... here are the fatalities by Race; over the past three years in Iraqi Freedom:

European descent (white) ..... 74.31%
Hispanic ............................. 10.74%
Black ................................... 9.67%
Asian ................................. . 1.81%
Native American .................... 1.09%
Other .................................... . 33%

You do the Math! These figures don't lie... but, Media-liars figure...and they sway public opinion! (These statistics are published by Congressional Research Service, and they may be confirmed by anyone at:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf )
Now ask yourself these two questions:

'Why does the mainstream Print and TV Media never print statistics like these?'
and
'Why do the mainstream media hate the web as much as they do?'"

Military Losses for 20 Years: I play at being Snopes.com

2008-01-21T05:21:24Z

(Originally posted here: Permalink)

Why Did the Democrats Win in Dallas County?

2006-11-23T20:25:24Z

Many people have already written about the Democrat's win in Dallas County, Texas. Here is a very good essay by Ken Molberg that covers much of the same ground that I will here. I think Ken is quite right in almost everything he says.

First off, this: Anyone who says they know definitively why the Democrats won Dallas County, but does not give you multiple reasons for the electoral wins, doesn't know what they're talking about. The roots of this electoral victory are deep and the shifts in Dallas County are complex. In my opinion, many of the old ways of analyzing the vote --where voters come from, who they vote for, and what their politics are-- will not hold in the future. And if you want to understand what did happen November 7th, and what will happen in Dallas County in future elections, you must look to at least three major factors:

1) An incredibly well organized Dallas Democratic Party and Coordinated Campaign.
2) The changing demographics of ALL of Dallas County, including the southern sector, a potential increase in the Hispanic vote, and the surprisingly strong showing in every suburb.
3) The intensity of the anti-Bush/anti-Republican vote, as reflected by Libertarian candidates getting crazy-good numbers when there was no Democrat running.

Let me speak to all of these because, IMHO, you will not understand the election unless you understand them all.....

"What Did You Do With the Dallas County Democratic Party?!!"
That' s what many observers kept asking themselves during this campaign season. Because, unlike years past, when political infighting and recriminations tore unity to shreds, the Democratic Party in Dallas County was unified and strategic this time. Over Labor Day weekend, I read a quote from Kenn George, the Dallas County Republican Chair, in the Morning News. He said that, in his opinion, the Democrats were unorganized and underfunded like "usual." I didn't know at the time time whether he was blowing smoke, or just genuinely deluded. To me, it didn't matter. It didn't matter if anyone outside of the small circle of candidates knew just how well they were working together. THEY knew they were, and they kept it going the whole election season.

Candidates stayed motivated on the task of beating their opponents, and did not beat up on each other. Each candidate, each party activist, brought his or her strengths to the table, and brought out the vote in many key areas of town.

At the heart of this effort was the "Coordinated Campaign." Ed Ishmael has described the Coordinated Campaign quite well in a Dallasblog essay.

I cannot add much to that analysis of the Coordinated Campaign, except to say that its unity of purpose made this campaign season light-year's different from 2004. Hats off, and major kudos, to Darlene Ewing, who managed to herd all the Democratic cats in one direction long enough to keep the unity going. I am quite impressed with her leadership skills. Darlene was decisive when she needed to be decisive. But she also listened to alternative opinions, and changed her mind when that was the best thing too. She intentionally chose to keep the Democrat's campaign a positive one; concentrating on lifting up the qualifications of Democratic candidates, and showcasing Democratic values, as opposed to wasting time tearing down either on the Republican side. I cannot praise her highly enough for all she did in this campaign.

The candidates pitched in too. They raised money, enlisted their relatives, worked long hours at events when few people showed up, and did not take one single Dallas County voter for granted. They made sure the Democratic Party has a presence at Women's Events, Black Events, Hispanic Events, Gay/Lesbian Events, Christian Events, Jewish Events, Muslim Events....you get the idea...

They marched in dozens of suburban parades. They attended candidate forums of two listeners, and two hundred. They walked, door-to-door, to the homes of thousands of county residents. I don't know what the total count was, but I am certain that candidates and volunteers of the Dallas Democratic Party knocked on tens of thousands of doors during this election cycle.

In short, they worked their butts off. And their unity and hard work, is the first reason Democrats won.

"Oh the Times, They Are A Changin'"
And so are the demographics of Dallas County. But it is far too simplistic to reduce this shift to the classic "North/South" polarity of old. Yes, that's a part of what's going on. But, as I will go into below, it's not the whole story.

The key point to understand is this: every single neighborhood of Dallas County is trending more Democratic, and has been for the past few election cycles.

But first, the county as a whole. Consider this analysis of the county-wide straight party vote in the past three elections:

Republican: 2000: 49.28% 2002: 49.06% 2004: 48.32%
Democratic: 2000: 49.86% 2002: 50.41% 2004: 51.22%

As you can clearly see, since least 2000 the Democrats have been winning the straight party vote percentage battle. Not only is their percentage increasing over this time period, but the Republican's percentage has been decreasing.

The actual percentages for the recently held 2006 election were:
Republican: 46.14
Democratic: 53.04

These percentages actually exceeded my predictions (Rep: 47.24; Dem: 51.9) for this election. Democrats did even better than the straight party vote of the previous three elections would indicate.

This next line I am about to type is crucial: There is no imaginable way that this trend will reverse.

Read that last line again, and say it with me three times slowly. Especially those of you who believe this election was a fluke, or that Dennise's election last time was as fluke...or that Sally Montgomery's election the time before that was. Say it until you believe it.

And if you still don't believe it, consider these other facts:

In 2000, a Democrat State District Judge candidate narrowly lost against an incumbent Republican.
In 2002, the Democrats won one county-wide judicial race.
In 2002, another candidate, Lisa McKnight, lost by a just over 1,000 votes!
In 2004, Democrats ran in six contests, and won three (fifty percent)
In 2006, Democrats ran in 40 races, and won all of them.
In 2004, George W. Bush --Dallas resident of ten years, and personal friend to many in this county-- won Dallas County by the slimmest of margins.... 10,000 votes out of more than 680,000 votes cast.
In 2006, Chris Bell won Dallas County (and might have even won a "head-to-head" with Rick Perry too).

So, yes, the "the times, they are a changin'" county wide.

But! They may be changing in more ways than you think. At least the data seems to indicate this. Here's what I mean....

These are not your Mother's Democratic Voters
As I said above, there are many folks who attribute almost all of the Democratic victory to an increase in southern sector voting. And while the southern sector vote is absolutely essential, always has been and always will be, if the analysis just stops there, I believe it misses the whole story.

Facts are, if you look just at the early voting numbers, turnout in the traditional South Dallas stronghold areas was significantly down. (BTW, this freaked out a lot of folks during early voting....there was not much confidence in some circles that ANY Democrats would win, because this traditionally Democratic area was so lagging, turnout-wise...)

In fact, turnout was down at almost every early voting location in South Dallas, by percentages of between 15 and 37 percent. (compared to 2002, the last comparible midterm election...) So, it doesn't make sense to say that it was only the South Dallas vote that was decisive. It was important. VERY important. The races could not have been won without it.
But, in my opinion, it was only when this is combined with other factors that the clear victory emerged for Dallas Democrats.

My personal hunch is that we will find another significant factor was increased Hispanic voter turnout. Domingo Garcia and others have already called it the most important single factor. We probably don't know enough of the facts yet to say that definitely. But you can't rule it out that claim based on the evidence.

Pundits argued for months about whether or not the Hispanic vote would "turn out," in record numbers this Fall. They didn't turn out in a tidal wave, that's true. But the facts are --with Dallas County as close as it is-- even a marginal increase in Hispanic voter turnout would have been enough to have a really key impact on this election.

And the Dallas Observer is reporting that it looks like there was a this kind of marginal increase. Their story finds that at least one analysis shows Hispanic turnout up 9 percent in early voting. If that total held for the general election, there's no doubt that it was a HUGE factor in this election. (In fact, taking into consideration traditional voting patterns, if the EV was up 9 percent, the election day voting was probably up even more than this...)

The Observer story found anecdotal information about increased Hispanic turnout:

Poll workers in heavily Hispanic precincts say they noticed more Latinos casting ballots, especially people in their late teens and early 20s, and noted a high number seemed to be voting straight-ticket Democrat. Rising numbers of Hispanic activists and volunteers, along with a surge in citizenship applications, point to long-term political influence, and in the short term, observers believe Latino voters played a major role in Dallas County's Democratic sweep.

One factual indicator of this is the early voting turnout at Grauwyler Recreation Center. While there were not huge total numbers of votes there, it's interesting to note the huge percentage increase. This heavily Hispanic neighborhood saw a whopping 63 percent increase in early voting over 2002.

Now, hold that thought in mind, and let me give you some other interesting factoids from the early vote.
Facts:

Early voting turnout was waaay DOWN in the Park Cities. 22 percent to be precise.

Early voting turnout was waaay UP in many of Dallas' suburbs...somewhere between 11 and 25 percent....take a look:
Irving: up 22 percent.
North Dallas: up 23 percent.
Richardson: up 22 percent.
Mesquite: up 25 percent.
Duncanville: up 11 percent.

Here's the thing: as I puzzled over these numbers during early voting, it made no logical sense that early voting could be so far down in the Park Cities, but so far up in the suburbs, and for this to still be Republican voters coming out. Coming out in the suburbs, but staying home in the Park Cities?!! It couldn't be. It had to be something else.

No, I was pretty convinced then (but too chicken to say it too aloud...), and I'm even MORE convinced now, that this was something different and new. These were Suburban Democrats. I believe they are Black, Anglo, Hispanic, and Asian, and I personally believe turnout is up for all of them.

Elements of the Democratic Party (some candidates and several PACs) spent a lot of time cultivating votes in these more traditionally "Republican" or "swing" areas. I believe it paid off. You see this no more clearly than in the races for State Representative, which tend to be very localized. We assume that there are many safe Republican seats among these races, and that Democrats have no chance of winning them.

But take a look at these facts....

Moving from left to right across the Dallas area, take a look at how surprisingly well Democratic State Representative candidates did in this election:

Grand Prairie/Irving: Katie Hubener lost by a heart-breaking 250 votes!!! So, basically, she pulled in 50 percent of that vote.
North Dallas/Richardson: Harriet Miller hoped to beat Tony Goolsby. She did not, but she did pull in 46 percent of the vote.
Near North Dallas/Lake Highlands: My good friend, and church member, Phillip Shinoda did not win his race against Will Hartnett, but he topped a quite respectable 42 percent.
East Dallas: Allen Vaught (one of these candidate who walked door-to-door) won his race...pulled in 50 percent.
Center of Town/Park Cities: In one of the most Republican areas of town, Jack Borden pulled in 40 percent of the vote.

And, let's throw in one more: Will Pryor, in a district drawn to be "Republican safe," drew 41 percent of the vote in his effort to unseat Pete Sessions. Again, that's a District that's mainly North Dallas and Irving.

The point is this: No Democrat running for state legislature took LESS than 40 percent of the vote in Dallas' northern suburbs and in North Dallas itself.

Get your mind around that factoid. Yes, this is not your Mother's Democratic voter. These are Anglo suburbanites, joined by Black, Hispanic, and Asian suburbanites, and the traditionally rich Democratic base of South Dallas to form a powerful and winning combination.

We saw these Suburban Democrats first in 2004 during the Frost/Sessions race. Countless North Dallas and suburban Democrats expressed surprise at how many "Frost" signs were up in their neighborhoods. This time, saw "Had Enough?" signs replaced the many Frost signs, along with signs for the aforementioned statehouse candidates, and folks like Will Pryor.

Summary: I believe we are seeing a permanent shift in the voting patterns of BOTH North Dallas and of South Dallas. And in both cases, this shift favors the Democrats.

But there was one final factor in this election....

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Voter Scorned
There is no question that this election carried an anti-Bush, and anti-Republican, patina. It hung over the election at every level...from the Congress to the local race for County Judge. People --Republicans, Democrats, and Independents-- wanted to send a statement. They are mad about the war, they are mad about Katrina, they are mad about Jack Abramov, they are mad about the dozen or so Republican members of congress who have gone down with him, they are mad about Tom Delay, they are mad about Mark Foley.

They are pretty dang mad.

One anecdote from the Fretz Park early voting location --told to me by a Harriet Miller volunteer-- so, take it with a grain of salt if you must...

The story goes that a guy came up to vote, and walked right up to Tony Goolsby's (the Republican incumbent's) volunteer, and said something like this:
"I have voted straight ticket Republican all of my life."

To which, allegedly, the volunteer whooped and hollered.

But, as the volunteer calmed down, the man continued, "But this year, I am going to go in and vote straight ticket Democrat...."

With that, he then turned, and walked straight into the voting location, leaving everyone watching in stunned silence.

I don't know if that story was true or not. But either way, the facts show that a LOT of people did exactly that: voted straight Democratic. Some of them were Republicans, voting Democratic for the very first time. Other Republicans stayed home.

As I said above, more people voted straight ticket than was predicted by my own estimate this time. In fact, the anti-Bush anger vote probably accounts for about one percent of straight ticket votes overall. Doesn't sound like much, but countywide, that's a lot of mad folks. Liberally, it could have been as many as 15-20,000 votes.

So, yes, there was an anti-Bush/anti-Republican edge to this election. And yes, some really fine human beings --Republican office holders and candidates; some of whom I have known for years and consider friends-- got caught up in it.

But before you dismiss it as a one time fad, please understand how deep it went, and how it factors in with everything else going on in the county. Again, we turn to some interesting numbers....

Take the races for State Supreme Court, for example. In almost all these races, no Democrat ran. It was a Libertarian verses a Republican. You'd assume a Republican stomping here, wouldn't you? In fact, in 2002 when a Libertarian ran against a Republican (with no Democrat on the ballot) Libertarians were only able to garner 13 percent of the vote, in the very best case.

This year, Republicans still won those races handily. But! This year, Libertarian candidates drew between 20 and 26 percent of the vote in Dallas County!!! In some races, 26 percent of the people voted for a Libertarian, rather than vote Republican or just leave the ballot blank. That's significant, friends. It points to a real desire to send a message, and express an anger and frustration with the President and the Republican Party. Whether you think it misguided or not, it's there, it's real, and it was a factor.

Before Republicans sooth themselves by believing that this is a temporary situation, they should remember points one and two of this essay:
-- The Democratic Party is well organized and, especially now that they've won, there is every indication that they will continue their winning strategies.
-- The demographics of Dallas County continue to shift, in the direction of Democratic voters, in every sector and neighborhood of the county.

In fact, even if there was a one percent anti-Republican factor in this election, and even if you assume that it caused some Democrats to get elected this time who otherwise would not have, the simple continuing trends in the Democrats favor will mean that by next election (2008) the percentages of Democratic voters will more than increase enough to account for the anti-Republican vote this time.
In other words: the results of this election, a Democratic sweep, were never in doubt over the long term.

And whether everyone admits it or not, it was never a question of "if," but only of "when."

The anti-Republican backlash MAY have caused it to happen this election cycle (rather than next) for some (not all) of the candidates who won this time. But even if you take away that backlash-vote and look toward the future, the Democrats will more than be able to make up for that small percentage in their own continuing gains.

As for Republicans, the task becomes pretty monumental. To re-take county-wide offices, the Republicans will not only have to win back the angry swing voters, woo back their voters who stayed home, but also win OVER some new voters to make up for continuing Democratic gains.

And that's probably too tall an order, given the realities of a party whose own straight party vote has now decreased for four straight elections.
------------------------------
Well, that's about it. I have now exhausted all my thoughts about turnout in this election. Others will disagree, of course, and come up with much more simple reasons for why everything happened the way it did. That's fine. It's one of the fun parts of politics...the second guessing...the armchair quarterbacking...the trying to put an election into context and come up with reasons for why what happened happened.

So, I am sure there are other ways to look at it. And others can write their own essays. But, I will remind you, I am now 2-0 as a political advisor to my favorite Democratic candidate.

So, if you take only one point away from this essay, I hope it will be this:

Lots of people think they have this election all figured out, but their figuring only includes one of the preceding set of factors.

-- They point to surpressed Republican straight ticket turnout, but fail to recognize that the trendline has been smaller Republican turnout for the last three elections.
-- They point to the changing Demographics of Dallas, and assume it's all a "southern sector" thing, failing to account for the increases in Northern sector and Hispanic voting.
-- They point to anger against the Republicans, while failing to see just how well organized and funded the Democrats were.

The answer to why the Democrats won is complex. And I hope I've given you all something to think about.

This blog originally posted here.

Connecting the Dots on the Cost of Immigrants

2006-08-27T11:16:00Z

(This blog originally published here: Permalink)

I'm back to writing on immigration issues again. And I'm not here tell you that migrant workers don't cost the American economy. I'm sure they do. Every adult in this country costs the economy something. But if we are going to have a proper debate about the costs of migrant workers to our economy, then we also need to look at what they contribute to our economy too.

This is an issue I've discussed before, but it came back to me this week because of two stories in the Dallas Morning News. The first story appeared on Tuesday, and while it was supposed to have been a story on how Parkland Hospital is petitioning the Federal Government for reimbursement of medical costs to migrant workers, the headline screamed something different:

"Migrant care costing millions: Parkland says price for nonemergency services tops $22M for year"
(online edition, registration required for all links in this blog)

The second story that caught my eye ran the very next day. The story was, ostensibly, about the burgeoning black market for identity papers, such as Social Security numbers. But buried in this story about a swell in black market papers, was a fact that should have caught everyone's attention: Migrant workers have paid billions of dollars in taxes to the federal government.

My point in juxtaposing these two stories --from the same newspaper on back-to-back days-- is that to have an honest debate about immigration, we must first be honest about what immigrants contribute to our economy. We've got to connect the dots between what migrant workers cost our economy/government, and what they contribute to our economy/government. And the truth is: they pay more in taxes than we give them credit for.

Take city taxes, for example. Migrant workers pay virtually the exact same amount as you and me to the City of Dallas through the sales taxes they pay. Like us, they shop at Wal-Mart and Target. They shop at NorthPark and Gaston Bazzar. And every time they make a purchase, they are paying taxes to the City of Dallas, just like we do. They are helping to pay for services such as police, fire, libraries, sanitation.

But also, take county taxes. And this where the aforementioned story about Parkland comes back into the picture. The story starts off by stating the following:

"Illegal immigrants got more than $22.4 million worth of nonemergency medical care at Parkland Memorial Hospital this year, officials said Tuesday. The cost estimate was the first time Parkland has quantified how much Dallas County taxpayers are paying for such care for illegal immigrants. "It's a significant amount of money," said John Gates, the hospital's chief financial officer."

Sounds pretty scary. Sounds like a terrible free ride, on the backs of all of us.

However, what this screaming factoid fails to account for is that a slice of Parkland's revenue comes from property taxes that are, most surely, paid for by these same migrant workers themselves. Every property owner pays property taxes to Dallas County. (The story says that, on average, it's about $370/house, and $348 million to the Parkland system...) And every landlord worth his or her salt passes that cost on to their tenants in the form of rent. It's not a broken-out, special cost. But it's in there. They'd be a fool not to include it. (Unless for some reason they are intentionally trying to take some kind of business loss on a particular property...)

The point is this:
A) Most migrant workers in the greater Dallas area pay rent
B) Most landlords pass their property tax amounts on to them as part of their monthly rent, and therefore:
C) Most migrants pay about what most other apartment dwellers pay for services at Parkland Hospital.

I was disappointed that the story by the DMN didn't connect these dots together. In fact, it felt like the story was trying to do two things at once. Actually, it was a pretty good story about how Parkland is trying to get reimbursement from the federal government for the cost of migrant care. As, Parkland board member Richard Kneipper was quoted as saying: "We're trying to stop Dallas County from paying more than its fair share."

Can't blame them one bit.

What I do blame them for, however, is not connecting the dots. Because while there is a helpful breakdown in this story of how homeowners pay taxes into the Parkland system, there was no admission that some of this revenue comes from the pockets of migrant workers themselves.

Common sense tells us they most assuredly pay these taxes. Just as they pay sales tax to the City of Dallas. Just as the story the next day showed that they pay taxes into the Federal system too.

By the way, they are paying a LOT into the Federal system. It's surely not the total amount they would pay, were all migrant workers given legal documents and status. But it's billions of dollars. And these are dollars that --because the underlying personal documents are fraudulent-- none of these workers will ever see. As I mentioned earlier, the DMN story the very next day cited one expert who, using the Federal Government's own numbers, believes that there is one billion dollars in the Social Security system for every one million migrant workers.

Read that last line again.

And get this thought into your head: This is a gift to you, me, and everyone else in our country.

It is a gift from these migrant workers to the American government and economy. A gift they will never see, and that can only go to help our economy and our government's bottom line.

And can you imagine if this gift came to us another way? What if the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that they were giving billions of dollars to the US Government?

What if they did it and said, "Use it any way you wish. It's our free gift to you."

I guarantee you, that story would be on the front page of every news channel for at least the next day. Everyone would be complimenting them on their generosity and magnanimity.

Friends, that's exactly what migrant workers are doing every day, right now. Except almost nobody's talking about it.

Again, I don't fault Parkland for seeking reimbursements any way they can. But I do question them singling out the migrant worker population, as if these workers pay nothing in to the Parkland system. And, if Parkland has done the analysis on what migrant workers contribute, it would've been nice to hear about it in the context of a headline that screams about how much migrant workers cost.

To my mind, migrant workers pay-in just about the same amount (proportionally, not in total dollars) as any apartment-dweller living in "The Village," or in the swanky new "W." As I said, certainly not the same dollar amount as these folks but, proportionally, about the same share. (Again, because of the cost is passed on the form of rent...)

Is Parkland going to seek reimbursement for the care of those who live in the "The Village?" If they were actively seeking reimbursement for the care of folks who live in "The Village," I wouldn't have single problem with their strategy. But since I haven't heard that this is what they're doing, it makes me wonder:

Why single out immigrants, and why now?

Without a clear answer, it feels like pandering to a hot button political issue. So, I'd love for Parkland to prove me wrong, and go after reimbursement for ALL apartment/tenant patients in the City of Dallas. Until and unless they do this, their strategy feels like pandering to the people who scream about how much immigrants cost our society.
-----------------------------------

Speaking of that, I haven't written about the furor in Farmers Branch.
What a bizarre story!!

I'm not quite sure what to make of it. On the one hand, I want to be deeply offended by the racism of the comments of Tim O'Hare of the Farmers Branch City Council. On the other hand, the argument is so completely ludicrous, that I'm left wondering: how does any thinking person take him seriously?!!

On the third hand (?), I'm also left wishing someone would connect the dots of his argument and ask him some tough questions about his proposals too.

Lemme get this straight: EVERY single major problem in Farmers Branch is attributable to a rise in immigrant population?

Oh, come on. Surely nobody with a brain takes this seriously!

Actually, the scary truth is that lots of folks probably will take him seriously.

Paradoxically, one of the provisions that O'Brien wants Farmers Branch to pass is to make it illegal to rent property to migrant workers.

Wow, now that will solve the problem!! Take away the tax base by not allowing landlords to collect rents from tenants!! If he thinks he's got a problem of a shrinking tax base now, just wait until that idea passes.

I haven't spent a lot of time in Farmers Branch lately. But my hunch is that the situation there is pretty much the same as the situation in every suburb on the northern side of town: The booming growth has moved to the North...to places like Frisco, the Colony, and even beyond. That's not the fault of immigrants. That's just the way it happens.

Twenty-five years ago, when I was growing up in Far North Dallas, we secretly cursed the success of Plano (OK, maybe not so secretly...) because it was clear, even then, that the excitement and energy of growth had moved past us.

It doesn't feel good when that kind of shift happens. But it's relatively inevitable, given the growth patterns of North Texas these past thirty years.

What's happening to Farmers Branch mirrors what happened to old, downtown Richardson fifteen-years-ago. In and around that time, dozens of Asian businesses moved in and set up shop. Now, when you drive down Beltline, you see dozens of shops (and even churches) with Chinese lettering on the storefronts.

Did some folks complain? I'm sure they did. But most folks seemed glad that someone was willing to move in, set up shop, and revitalize the area. And most of the City of Richardson today is glad to collect the taxes from all those successful businesses.

Again, I don't know the exact situation in Farmers Branch. But my hunch is, the same kind of demographic shift is happening there too. And it has very little do to with migrant workers, and everything to do with the average age of Farmers Branch residents and the folks who own properties there.

Picking on the immigrant population may make Mr. O'Brien and his friends feel good. But at the end of the day, every major problem they identify in Farmers Branch will still be there. And, if they pass their law about renting to migrants, they'll certainly see a drop in their tax base. So, here we come back to the "connecting the dots" issue again. It would be nice for the DMN and others to ask Mr. O'Brien just what his plan is for replacing that tax revenue.

Finally, it's ironic that Mr. O'Brien raises these concerns now. Because just two weeks before, the Morning News also reported that a new study shows no impact on local jobs due to migrant populations. The study is from the Pew Center, and here's a quote from that story:

"One of every six workers in Texas is foreign-born, but that hasn't hurt job prospects for native-born workers, says a Pew Hispanic Center study released Thursday.
The study comes as debates over immigration policy heat up on Capitol Hill, in congressional hearings around the nation and in political campaigns.
The nonpartisan center said that during the booming 1990s, native-born workers in Texas had above-average employment rates and the foreign-born population had above-average growth rates.
The study, based on census data, also didn't find a link between foreign-born workers and employment rates for native-born workers in 2000 through 2004, when the economy slumped.
"There is no clear relationship between trends in immigration and employment outcomes for native workers," said Rakesh Kochhar, associate director for research at the Pew center.
"Others can draw the connection, but we find no relationship.""

I'd love for someone to connect those dots and ask Mr. O'Brien about this too. And given all these realities I've been discussing here, I'd love for someone to ask him: how are his proposals a good idea for his city? How will they actually fix the ills he says that they will?
--------------------------------

The bottom line is this:

If we are going to have a serious debate about the affect of the migrant population on our city and region, we must not only complain about the costs of having migrants among us, but we must also be willing to carefully analyze what they are giving back to us. We must take into account the gifts they are giving us in Social Security taxes. We must take into account the city and county taxes they pay.

We must honestly connect the dots, and look past screaming headlines or screaming politicians.

If Everybody Claims Victory, Does Everybody Win? (Israel and Hezbollah)

2006-08-17T00:19:41Z

(This essay originally posted here)

It's the craziest part of the new cease fire between Israel and Hezbollah-- the part where both sides are claiming victory. Both sides seem ready to accept this --at least temporary-- cease fire. Both sides are publicly saying now is a great time to stop dropping bombs on the other. Because --they each claim-- they have met most of their major "goals."

For Hezbollah, I suppose they have managed to assert themselves as a powerful political/social force in the region. For Israel, I suppose at some level, they have avenged the kidnapping of two soldiers.

But how is this victory? Isn't it just a pitiful continuation of the same conflict that has raged for....how long? Decades? Centuries? Millennia?

And here's the truth: no matter what each side claims, this is not a war that can be won. Ever. Not now. Not a hundred years from now. Winning/losing is the completely wrong conceptual axis. The only real realistic axis moves back and forth between coexistence and constant war.

Anytime anybody thinks they have "won" in the Middle East, get ready for more bloodshed down the road.

A few years back, during the Palestinian Intifada, I wrote a song called "Ishmael and Isaac." And, in honor (honor?) of current conflict, I've put it up on my myspace page, and you can listen to it there. (And use the "Standalone Player" as you read the rest of this blog...)

Maybe the song is too simplistic, and visualizing one of the world's long-standing conflicts as nothing more than a "sibling rivalry" is naive. But the metaphor seems to fit, to my mind.

Most sibling rivalries go on for so long that nobody even remembers quite what started them. This story starts with two "half brothers" whose metaphorical descendants become the tribes of Israel and the tribes of Arabia. Two of the world's great religions come from these two small boys.

There is a verse in Genesis where it says that they are simply, innocently, playing in the sand. It's an image I like to keep in my mind. I like to imagine: what if we could strip back the layers of emnity, and just get back to that moment? What if we could bottle that moment, and bring it forward into our all-too-adult world?

The moment doesn't last. Their father and mothers get involved in the situation, and pretty soon it's clear that the valley isn't big enough for the both of them. (Even though they are probably the smallest humans there!!) And so, these two boys are put at odds with one another, through the jealousies and bitterness of their parents.

How often are the failings of adult children traceable to the things their parent's taught them to hate?

Of course, Christianity comes out of this same soil too. Three of the world's great religions all tie back to this same father, these same two mothers, and that tiny sliver of real estate.

Isn't there something to be said for seeing someone as family? Or, has this sibling rivalry gone so long that nobody can the "others" as related to them at all.

I cannot condone what Hezbollah has been doing in southern Lebanon. Israel is absolutely correct to point out that they have violated the terms of a previous peace agreement by arming a buffer zone that was supposed to provide everyone with a little space. And Israel is right to ask questions about how we would act if another government or group had all that kind of armament pointed our way, just across our border. I mean, think back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. We almost saw World War III when some missiles were 90 miles away from us. How would be react if, as is the case now, we were facing down missiles a mile across the Canadian border? (Work with me here, it's a hypothetical...)

On the other hand, I cannot condone Israel's major offensive based on the kidnapping of two soldiers. It appears for all the world that they have wanted to go into southern Lebanon for years, but simply have not had the "pretext" to be able to make the move. By all accounts, these war plans have been drawn up for a long time, and they were waiting...just waiting...for some shoe to drop. The kidnapping of two of their soldiers was that shoe, and the assault began.

It would be nice to have an....oh, I don't know...Superpower that might step in at such a time and force both sides back to the table. Tony Blair tried to sell that idea to President Bush at a world summit recently. But apparently Bush was already too busy at his own table, eating a dinner roll, to be bothered with it.

But, let's say we HAD gotten involved and gotten involved early. What would say to Israel? In a world where "pre-emptive war" is now seen as an appropriate policy strategy, who are we to argue with them? By which I mean: given our own pre-emptive war --fought on trumped up moral grounds that have since crumbled like desert sand-- who are we to judge what they do?

Perhaps this is why the Administration seemed to act so slowly in this case. Not only because, politically, some in the Administration wanted Israel to have the time to fight this war; but also because, morally, what could we really say to them:

Please stop....we don't think this is right?

Please stop...we'd certainly never do anything like this?

Please stop...you don't see how this will just make things worse in the region?

I mean, which of these could we actually say, in good conscience?

So, we said nothing. We stood by, mutely, eating our dinner rolls. Abandoning what shreds of moral authority we had left.

----------------------------------------

So, what happens now?

Israel's in a heck of a pickle, because Hezbollah now seems much stronger (militarily) than they counted on. Therefore, doesn't Israel look "weak" and vulnerable if they don't continue fighting? But what happens if they do? (Hint: can you say, "Bagdad?") It's a heck of a pickle. And once you've started something like this, where is the place you can stop? And when have you really made yourself "safer?"

For Hezbollah, there are risks too. The people of Lebanon may turn on them. They've certainly rejected Syrian-installed leaders before. Maybe the Lebanese will rise up and throw the bullies out. It's certainly a risk Hezbollah faces now. Or, the exact opposite may happen...ie, these leaders that Israel believes should bear the responsibility for this conflict may actually grow stronger in the eyes of the ordinary Lebanese people. (Hint: can you say "Bagdad?")

Israel continues to enjoy strong support from the United States, and especially from those of us who are members of the third great religion of that region: Christianity. But I hope everyone (Israelis and Jews especially) understand that some of this support comes from ultra-conservative Christians who really do not have Israel's self-interest at heart.

For them, it's about theology more than politics. Many of these ultra-conservative Christians believe in Israel's right to exist, not as a successful sovereign nation, but as the first pawn in a coming Apocalypse. Their strange brand of theology tells them that the world cannot end UNLESS there is an entity called "Israel." Israel MUST exist, because the Bible says it must. And the Bible says it, so they believe, because that's how the world ends.

So, it has nothing to do with who Israel is as a nation, or what Israel's best interests are as a state. And I would have my friends who are supporters of Israel to at least pause and take this to heart. I hope it makes them a little uneasy.

The Arab/Palestinian/Muslim side of this conflict also often enjoys support from Christians. Usually from liberal end of the theological spectrum.

These folks see the conflict in stark "justice" terms:

strong Israel vs. weak Palestine.

powerful landlords vs. evicted settlers.

And there is truth to their analysis. Just as the Bible has apocalyptic sections that talk about the end of the world (probably meant to be taken metaphorically), so too the Bible has sections that talk about justice for the oppressed and downtrodden (probably not meant to be taken metaphorically).

But here too, sometimes I fear that these liberal Christians (the folks I hang out with most often...) don't see the Arab/Palestinian/Muslim side as real people either, but as symbols for the "downtrodden." As such, sometimes progressive Christians seem too willing to excuse terrorist acts, and random violence as justifiable responses. They don't come right out and say they support such acts. But their silence often creates the exact same kind of moral vacuum that the President created when he just sat and ate his dinner roll.

We must condemn violence on all sides. We must implore everyone in the region to try and see the conflict through the eyes of the "other."

Both Jews and Christians share the Hebrew Scriptures, and this past Sunday in our church the lectionary reading was from Samuel. It was the from the section where King Solomon had just finished building his glorious temple....a site still fought over to this day by all three of these great religions.

The temple took 30 years to complete. It required a vast expenditure of resources and human capital, including men who we conscripted into virtual slavery as temple construction workers. But finally, the Temple is done. And Solomon gathers to offer a prayer. He prays for wisdom and guidance for all the people. And then, during one part of the prayer, Solomon says this:

"As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name- for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when he comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name."

What would it be like if everyone in Jerusalem could respect the prayers and supplications of everyone else? What would it mean if each great religion were to say to its own extremists:

"We must all coexist together in this land, because it's a spiritual inheritance for us all. The descendants of this land all trace back to two half brothers, who, for a brief time, coexisted as God's children. Let us work to create such a land again."

Wouldn't that be great?

I'm not holding my breath. But I truly do believe that such an idea is the only path to true peace. And perhaps it's more of a religious and spiritual truth that needs embodiment than a political one that needs negotiation.

Because the descendants of those two half brothers continue to fight, right down to this day. And it doesn't matter who started it anymore. It really doesn't. The only thing that matters is how it ends. And if the region is to survive, then there are ways that all sides can come to coexist.

Because the one thing I know for sure is that this is a war that can never be "won."

The DaVinci Code: What We Know and DON'T Know About Religion

2006-05-21T02:31:40Z

(This essay was originally posted here on May 19th)

Today, the DaVinci Code madness starts all over again.

Actually, the madness has been building for several months now, ahead of the release of the DaVinci Code movie today. (In theaters around the planet, to read the press release)

As many of you know, I have the theological training (seminary degree) and literary training (journalism degree) to be more than a little dangerous. And since this is a book/movie/cultural phenomenon that is both literary and theological event, you might expect me to have a few thoughts.
:)

This is an interesting book precisely because it blends mystery, suspense, theology, sex, history, into a potent and captivating brew. But I hear many people asking questions that we don't often ask about works of fiction. Folks are asking: "Is it true?"
(click "Read More" below...)

That's an interesting question, to my mind, because, as I said, we don't usually ask it about works of fiction. When Tom Wolfe writes about college students in modern America, we don't say, "Hmnn...is THIS character actually a real person? Did what they do in the book actually happen?"

Usually, Wolfe's writing is close enough to real-life people that we can accept the general idea that such things ARE possible, without having to debate whether or not they are literally true.

But, for some reason, we treat the DaVinci Code differently. We ask ourselves:
"IS it true?"
"What if it IS true?"
"How can I know whether or not it is true?"

First off, let me say that, as a work of fiction, I personally loved the book. Dan Brown knows how to write a good thriller. He knows how to keep the attention of his readers. I found myself --as the cliche goes-- unable to put it down. It's a good book.

But let me say early in this essay that, as a work of a theology, as a primer on Christian history, as a source of any kind of "factual data," the book is horrible. Just lousy. It really is.

To some people (Christian people, mostly), that makes the book evil, or misguided, or points to some kind of anti-Christian "agenda." I don't really get that, but I see how other folks might. It's just a work of fiction that glosses the historical record, and flat out makes up other stuff.

But there is a deeper point I want to make in this essay. The deeper point is not that the book is pro-Christian or anti-Christian.

The deeper point is this: Most of us don't know enough about Christianity to be able to judge one way or the other!!!

To me, this is the sad part. Most folks in our society don't know enough about one of the great religions of our world to know whether or not this book is "telling the truth." They've got hunches. Perhaps they've got guesses. Perhaps they've even got what they hope is the answer to this question. But they don't really KNOW.

They don't know enough to know whether they know or not!!

So, to the dear reader of this blog, I hope you will take this as a challenge to your own life. I hope you will ask yourself: Do YOU know enough about Christianity to know whether or not this book is telling the truth? Do YOU know enough about Christian history? Theology? World history?

You don't have to go to seminary to get this kind of education. All you have to do is to choose to make religion something you study-up on. You have to decide that --whether or not religious faith is important to you as an individual-- it's still important enough to the culture that you ought to know something about it.

I first heard this argument when I was in college at UT, and taking American History. My professor --whose name escapes me at the moment-- decided that he would teach American history from the perspective of America's religious history. His thesis was that unless you fully understood what was happening in the religious community at any given point in the past, you could not fully understand what was happening in American history. I think he's absolutely right.

How can we understand the Abolitionist Movement, without understanding the impact of the faith community?
How can we understand child labor laws, the temperance movement, union organizing, women's right to vote, without understanding what religion was saying at the time?
How can we understand what Martin Luther King believed, without remembering that he was a preacher first and foremost?
How can we understand the question of gay marriage, without understanding what various religious faiths are saying about gay people today?

So, if you have questions about this book, ask yourself this question: Do you know enough to know what you know? And if you don't, what are you going to do about it? Is there some reading you can do? Are there some sources you can consult?

Because, unless you do your own thinking, you're left to take my word for it. (Or, the word of some other so-called expert...)

And you CAN do that. But isn't that a little dangerous? Isn't it dangerous to leave your theological-thinking to the so-called experts? Ironically, isn't one of the allegations of the book that somebody somewhere has a secret knowledge that you DON'T have? Isn't the point of the protagonist's quest that the search for the truth is important?

I hope you'll consider the question: Do I know enough to know what I know?

And if you don't, I hope you'll get yourself educated!

And, if you're still interested in knowing what I know, I'd be happy to tell you now.
(If not, you can stop reading now, and go off and enjoy your day...)
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The DaVinci Code mixes real, factual and historical people, places, and things; with fanciful and hypothetical allegations that can never (at least not now) be proven or disproven.

There is a good "FAQ" about the DaVinci Code in the Dallas Morning News, and you might just start here.

Here is another story, written by Morning News religious writer, Jeffery Weiss, that talks about the DaVinci Code backlash. You can read it here.

In one section of this second story, Weiss says this:

The book's plot revolves around a centuries-old conspiracy to hide the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene – and their descendants. The conspirators included Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo Da Vinci, who cleverly hid clues to the secret in his paintings. (Hence the title.)
The very first sentence in the book implies this is more than a mere tale. "Fact: The Priory of Sion – a European secret society founded in 1099 – is a real organization." This arcane society, according to Mr. Brown's telling, has been the keeper of the secret about Jesus and Magdalene.

(snip)

The book reeks of truthiness and smartiness – the appearance of being truthful and smart without necessarily being either. The protagonist is a Harvard professor (in a department that doesn't exist). The fast-moving plot is propelled by a series of clever puzzles based on famous works of art.

So, what about the "facts" in the book? Lot's of folks are talking about them. (In another place, Weiss points out that over 44 authors have written books, debunking the DaVinci Code!!!)

Among the "facts" that are clearly not factual is the story of the "Priory of Sion," which is referred to repeatedly as an actual, historical group that counted Isaac Newton and Leonardo DaVinci as members. In truth, the "Priory" was likely invented by a Frenchmen as a hoax in the 1950s. Yes, there are documents in French libraries that point to its origins. But that same French guy from the 1950s put them there.

We can thank good-old 60 Minutes for uncovering this story for us all, and you can read their report here.

That's really the heart of the whole book right there. And once you accept that the "Priory" is a made-up, fictional organization (and I hope you will) it becomes much easier to accept the rest of the book as fun fiction (which I hope you will).

But, here is other truthiness from the book:

-- The glass pyramid at the Louvre has 673 glass panes, not 666.
-- The Dead Sea Scrolls were written by Jews and say nothing about Jesus.
-- They were discovered in 1947, not the 1950s.
-- The irrational number Phi is not precisely equal to 1.618.
-- If the figure to the left of Jesus in The Last Supper is really Mary Magdalene, as the book claims, then Leonardo left out an apostle.
-- If it's really John, as most art historians claim, Leonardo was neither the first nor the only artist to paint him as a beardless, long-haired young man.
-- Mr. Brown's best "proof" of a romance between Jesus and Mary Magdalene comes from the Gospel of Philip, one of the Gnostic gospels.

Again, from a literary point of view, none of this a big deal. Books play hard and fast with the truth all the time.

W.P. Kinsella's great book "Shoeless Joe" became the basis for the movie "Field of Dreams." In the book, the lead character --who happens to be named Ray Kinsella-- encounters the ghost of an old country doctor named Archie "Doc" Graham....or, "Moonlight" to his fans. The claim is that he was a major leaguer at one point. And, if you break out your "Encyclopedia of Baseball" you will be pleased to find that there actually WAS a real Archie Graham, who really was a pitcher.

Did he retire to become a country doctor?
Beats me. Don't care, really. But it makes a great story.

Let me take this line of thought further (since this is one of my all time favorite books/moves, and the line of thinking fits...). In the movie version, the character played by James Earl Jones is named Terrance Mann. He is portrayed as an aging and broken 60s radical. But, in the original book, the character is J. D. Salinger...meant to be the reclusive writer of "Catcher in the Rye!!"

So, did W.P Kinsella, or Ray Kinsella, or anybody for that matter, kidnap J.D. Salinger and take him on a cross-county adventure?
No. Of course not. (In fact, the grumpy Salinger was so upset by the book that this is probably why they changed the character...ie, in real life, the real-life Salinger stayed a reclusive, old grump)

When reading this book, do we stop to ask "Is it true?!"
No. We accept that's it's fiction.

But for some reason, there are readers of DaVinic Code who seem ready to believe that the same kind of fanciful story --told about religion, instead of baseball-- IS true.

By the way, in some deeply spiritual way, I think Field of Dreams IS true. It's just not LITERALLY TRUE. There is a difference between what is true, and what is literally true. We have a hard time understanding this in our time, because we put such trust in "facts." (And assume they never change, and that they are somehow "truer" than other kind of more, metaphorical truth...)

And this gets me to my final points:

What IS true about the DaVinci Code, then? At what level can we say that it points to things that ARE "true?"

Here, I'll do my own quick Q and A:

Is there a grand conspiracy to hide the fact that Jesus and Mary were married?
Doubtful. Like the idea that there is some broader conspiracy around the Kennedy assassination, it defies credulity to imagine that such a fantastic secret could be kept for 2,000 years. Some person who was keeping the secret a secret would have spilled the beans, somewhere back in time. Or, somebody tasked with keeping the secret-keepers quiet (in the book, "Opus Dei") would have been unable to keep it to themselves. People talk. Somebody would have talked!!! Heck, we can't even keep secret government programs secret in our time...what makes us think that a HUGE secret like this could remain secret for 2,000 years?!

But nobody has talked. And so this is perhaps the best, most common-sense, argument you can make against the idea that Jesus and Mary were married and had children.

Does the Church Keep Too Many Secrets?
Absolutely. And that's where some of the attraction of this book comes from. Whether it's what we now know of the clergy abuse scandals, or the very real existence of Vatican archives that almost no one ever sees, the Catholic Church keeps too many secrets. Nature abhors this kind of vacuum. And, into this vacuum, steps the DaVinci Code....full of all sorts of truthiness.

Did the Church Suppress the Gnostics?
Yes. Or, better said, what became the Catholic Church and what became the Gnostic movement battled with each other over several centuries. The Gnostics should not be thought of as a poor, abused small people without opinions to aire, or axes of their own to grind. They were, in fact, quite opinionated about Jesus, the nature of God, the history of the church, etc...

These two groups fought as virtual equals for some time. The Christian Church eventually became far more powerful. And as they say, the telling of history usually belong to the victor. That is to say that many Gnostic writings probably were destroyed. However, a surprising number of them also do still exist.

Who were the Gnostics and why don't I know more about them?
Well, when you learn American history, why don't you learn more about King George? When you learn about Alexander the Great, why don't you learn more about all the folks he conquered?

We just don't usually learn our history that way. The telling of history, as they sometimes say, belongs to the victors. Over time, over history, we drop the references to the groups that fall off the historical screen..and we continue to tell, retell, and expand on the history/story of those who "win."

Most scholars agree that most of the Gnostic writings we have today were written after the original Gospels and letters of Paul. And this is one of the reasons that scholars aren't more interested in them. (Some are!) Scholars assume that they either embellished those original stories, or intentionally told the stories in a different way to make their own point.

In other words, the Gnostic writings are different, and in part because they were written to be responses to the the early Church and what they believed. They were written to set themselves apart from the early church, with whom they saw themselves in conflict and competition.

In those days, nobody on any side of any debate wrote anything down right away, by the way. There are no eyewitness accounts. There is no front page "Jerusalem Herald" story. There is no digital video tape. The stories --both from Gnostic side and the early Christian side-- were told orally and then, over time, were written down in the forms we have today.

Many modern people are attracted to the early writings of the Gnostics, because they claim that the Gnostics were more egalitarian in their beliefs and included a role for women not present in the early church. That's true if you read some of the Gnostic writings. But there are others where it is said that a woman cannot get to heaven, unless she becomes like a man. And that's not real egalitarian, is it!!?

Other are attracted to Gnostics because the Gnostics claimed to have "secret knowledge" (much like Dan Brown's book!!!), and so folks fancy that, if there IS secret knowledge out there somewhere, they'd like to have it, thank you very much.

We don't know all there is know about Gnostics, because much of the record has been destroyed. We can surmise their beliefs, and if folks want to try to become card-carrying Gnostics, have at it. But, they'll be recreating something that we have no firm record of, and any rituals or beliefs they claim to follow will be, in part, made up from modern assumptions.

Bottom line: There is nothing in the Gnostic tradition that can seriously debunk the Christian story completely. OR! vice versa.

Has the Catholic Church/Christian Church Suppressed the Role of Women?
Absolutely. No question. Women served as priests in the early church. There is even historical record of women serving as bishops. But, over time, women's roles became minimized in these areas, and there was suppression of women. Many scholars today are rediscovering that history, and you can read more about it here.

That is one of the attractions of the book for a lot of folks, it seems to me. In that it re-discovers a role for women in the history of the church has has, in truth, been suppressed. In my opinion, and the opinion of many scholars, the DaVinci Code gets the story of women's real role wrong...but there's that "nature abhors a vacuum" thing again.

Because so much of the church is unwilling to really talk about the appropriate historical place of women --in either the ancient church, or today-- the Da Vinci Code comes along to fill the vacuum and give people an interesting story.
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Well, that's more than enough opinion on this subject...and not that you even asked!

One closing thought, from the Jeffery Weiss story.

Weiss says that we certainly do not try to get all our knowledge about science from the TV series "Star Trek." For some reason (perhaps its campy production values?) we tend to assume it's really fiction.

But with the DaVinci Code, folks from all walks of life --from faith and no faith-- seem ready to believe it's fanciful claims.

-- Perhaps it's because of the "truthy" way the book presents its "facts?"
-- Perhaps because we like a good scandal?
-- Perhaps because the real-life Church (Catholic and otherwise) is often so secretive about its own past and history?
-- Perhaps because folks like to imagine that some "new" religion (like the Gnostics) might really have some "secret" knowledge?
-- Perhaps because we've got a broad hunch that the Church did suppress women?

Perhaps for all these reasons and more, many many folks seem to want to believe this book is factually true.

But the sad part is that most of us are just guessing.

And we don't know enough to know what we know about it, and what we don't.

Get You a Hybrid

2006-05-08T11:13:05Z

Hybrid Cars (You Need to Get You One...)

(Originally posted here on April 28th)

Disclaimer: I am not unbiased about Hybrid Cars. I have drunk deeply from the Hybrid-hype Kool Aid. I am a Hybrid evangelist. If Hybrid owners had a religion, I would be a Scientologist.

All that said, my message today is very simple: you need to get you one of 'em.

See, I know that loses me instant credibility among some of you, because you'd like me to be a little less passionate, and little more logical, about it. I know that.

Sorry, I just can't. And I know that what I am about to say in these next few sentences will also lose me even more credibility with some of you. But I feel compelled to say it.

So, here it is:
...If you really want to fight the war on terror...
...If you really want to help the environment...
...If you really want to save some serious gas-money...

Get you a Hybrid car.

I can back up this evangelical zeal with a combination of facts and personal testimony (an attempt to appear to both the thinkers and feelers among you) and I'd like to share all of it with you now...

First, the claim about the war on terror. I said this: If you really want to fight the war on terror, get you a Hybrid car.

What do I mean by this?

Quite simply: if we all drove Hybrids, we would, quite literally, eliminate our need to import oil from the Middle East. You can quibble about a lot of the facets of the "War on Terror." (The Iraq War, the saber-rattling toward Iran, the lack of preparedness here at home I could go on...for a long time...) But one thing is beyond debate-- that governments, private citizens, and, yes, the terrorists of the Middle East get their money from oil. They get LOTS of money from oil. And they know that we are the ones addicted to oil.

In fact, all we'd have to do to eliminate imports from the Middle East completely is to raise fuel efficiency by 7.6 MPG. If we all drove Hybrids, we'd blow that figure off the charts. We'd probably be saving 20-30 MPG more on average, and drastically reduce our dependency on oil from all other nations. And if we did this, we'd not only be able to cut off oil imports from the Middle East, but there'd be no need to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge either.

Facts:
In 2001, 55 percent of our oil came from foreign countries.
By 2020, that number is projected to be 70 percent.

So long as these figures are so astronomically high, we are at risk as a nation. You've heard it said that we face many different security risks. This, friends, is a true security risk. China is also gobbling up oil right now. It's unlikely to think that their need for oil will abate. So, what if ours did? What if we were able to get most of our oil from home, and leave the Chinese and the Indians to the whims of Middle Eastern markets?

We'd be much more secure, no question.

Why haven't we all embraced this as a real way to fight the war on terror?!! Why haven't our leaders boldly pushed for this?!!! Like "Rubber Drives" during World War II, buying a Hybrid Car today is one of the most patriotic things you can do for your country.

Secondly, the claim about the Environment. I said this: If you really care about the Environment, get you a Hybrid car.

I know lots of folks who drive high-MPG cars, or have alternative fuel vehicles. I know a songwriter friend who crossed the country in van that burns french fry oil. I know another friend with a deisel car that gets 50-MPG. When I talk to some of my friends who drive high-mileage cars about my Hybrid, they counter that their cars also get high gas mileage...sometimes even 40-50 MPG. (Like most Hybrid Cars...) That is very true. And those folks are doing a LOT to help the environment. They really are...

But....there is a but...

Let me put the "but" in plain term: if you were to burn ten gallons of gas in a Hybrid, and ten gallons in a regular car (even one getting 45 MPG) the Hybrid car is still FAR better for the environment.

This is where a lot of folks scratch their heads and say, "Huh?"

And it's because they fail to realize how Hybrids actually work, and how they actually burn gas. Hybrids burn gas differently than the average car and, as such, are far better for the environment than even the best high-MPG regular car. In what follows, I will use our car, the Toyota Prius, as the example here, because it's the model I know.

But first, a few more facts about gas engines:
-- When a gas engine is idling, it's burning gas (a brilliant statement of the obvious...)
-- When a gas engine is idling, it's burning gas less efficiently than it does when it's running at higher speeds

It's this second point that many folks don't realize. The reason lawn mowers are so deadly to the environment is that they burn gas at relatively low speed all the time, and move pretty slowly even in their highest gear. It's the same with cars.

When you're sitting at the drive-thru at Whataburger, you're burning more gas and polluting more air, than you would be driving 65 MPH on Central Expressway. (In fact, my Dad makes a cogent argument for eliminating all drive-thru windows as an environmental statement...) Most of our city pollution is caused not just by the number of cars out there, but also by the length of time they spend idling, or moving very slowly, in stop-and-go traffic and drive-thru windows.

A Hybrid car (Toyota Prius) does not use its gas engine when it's idling. In fact, the gas engine shuts off completely and it switches to a small electric engine also under the hood. When the light turns green, and you begin to accelerate, the electric engine stays on for a while. If you accelerate slowly, it stays on until you're at 10 or 15 MPH. Then, the gas engine begins to help out, and by the time you're at 20 or so MPH, the gas engine has taken over almost for the most part. (If you need to accelerate quickly, the gas engine kicks in quicker...acceleration in a Hybrid always feels just alike a "normal" car....)

The "knock" on electric engines had always been that they're not really powerful enough. If you remember the early electric cars, they could only go 40 or 50 MPH, and they took forever go get up to that speed. They also had to be "plugged in" for long periods, and you couldn't drive them very far.

Hybrid cars basically harness the best qualities of an electric engine (the ability to not pollute while idling, and be used for initial acceleration) and the best qualities of a gas engine (the power you need in a car, and the ability burn gas more cleanly at higher speeds). That combination is what makes a Hybrid car such a brilliant technology. And, you don't have to plug it in...the battery recharges by harnessing the energy you spend breaking or coasting.

Still don't get it? I realize that it really IS hard to get your mind around....especially if you fail to realize how integral the electric engine is for the Hybrid.

So, let's do a quick comparison of two fairly high mileage cars: the Toyota Camry, and the Toyota Prius. Let's assume you drive each of them 14,000 miles in one year.

Over that year:

The Toyota Camry --which cannot be considered a gas guzzler by any stretch of the imagination-- will produce 11,100 pounds of dangerous CO2 gas.

The Toyota Prius --the trendsetting Hybrid from the same carmaker-- will produce a mere 4,800 pounds of CO2!!!

This is a savings of 6,300 pounds of CO2!!!

So, this is why even Hybrid SUVs are better for the environment that regular SUVs. Even if you have a Hybrid SUV that only gets ten miles more per gallon (let's say it only gets 29 instead of 19...) it would STILL be FAR better for the environment. Arguably then, any Hybrid car would be better for the environment than any regular car, even they theoretically got the exact same MPG, just because of this technology difference.

Are you starting to see the difference now? It's not JUST about MPG, but it's also about how gas gets burned, and how CO2 gas gets released into the air. It's hard to argue that any other car is better for the environment than a Hybrid. The biggest Hybrid SUV is still just about as good as the most fuel efficient regular car....mind-boggling, huh?

Finally, and last but not least: If you really want to save some serious gas money, get you a Hybrid.

Of course, this argument could also be made of any other high-mileage car. (Which is why I made the environmental argument first.) But, let's look at the facts, just for our car. Our Hybrid car probably cost about $2,000 more than a conventional car of about the same size. However, we got a $2,000 TAX CREDIT off our income taxes the next year. I understand that some of these kinds of credits are still around. But I also hear the Bush Administration is seeking to phase them out. (Sorry, but isn't this being "soft on terror?")

But, beyond that initial $2K we saved on our taxes, consider the gasoline savings issue...

Right now, here in Dallas, regular unleaded is about 3 bucks a gallon. (Let's just round it to $3 bucks a gallon, for the sake of argument...) We have two cars: a Toyota Prius, and a Jeep Cherokee. Our Prius gets an average of 45 MPG (a little more when Dennise drives, and little less when I do...). Our Jeep gets an average of 12.5 MPG. (No matter who drives...) That means we get 450 miles in the ten gallon Prius tank. That means we get 125 miles for every ten gallons in the Jeep.

Basically, I look at it this way: Every time we fill up the Prius, if I had a second Jeep instead, it would take 26 more gallons to go the same distance.

Therefore, every time I fill up the Prius, it would cost me $78 dollars more if my second car was another Jeep instead.

Mind boggling again, huh?

It's really true. It really is. We've heard a lot of grumblings out there that Hybrids don't actually get the advertised MPG that's on the sticker. OK, fine...does your conventional car get what it was advertised to?

Actually, we get pretty close to what we were promised. Our year model was rated at 45 MPG on the highway, and 52 in the city. (If that sounds strange, remember again how the Prius uses gas, and how it will use the electric engine more in the city, thus saving more gas...) As I said, we average about 45 MPG (in mostly city driving...) Sometimes, it's more. Sometimes, it's less. But it hovers around that pretty consistently.

So, we're saving TONS of money on gas. Even today, it still costs us just $30 dollars to fill up the Prius' ten gallon tank. And each tank gets us 450 miles, on average.

You can learn a lot more about Hybrid Cars at this great website. It's got loads of facts to support everything I've said here. And it's also got this cool calculator, that will allow you to figure out what you'd save, and how you'd help the environment, if you owned a Hybrid instead of whatever you're driving now.

Please do your own research. Because I've already drunk the Kool Aid. I'm not unbiased. I have a very strong opinions about it all. My bottom line is unwavering and I know will strike some as too strident. But, it's not just about the car your drive. It's about what you can do to literally save the earth, fight global terror, and keep some cash in your pocket all at the same time.

It may sound strident, but it's just the way I feel:
Get you a Hybrid.

Immigration Misinformation

2006-05-05T11:29:36Z

The entry was originally posted here on April 25th.

I have a lot of email friends who forward me lots of "chain" emails. Often, they are harmless (and sometimes very funny) jokes. Sometimes, they are heart-wrenching stories of little children in need of kidney dialysis. And, now and then, they are political treatises, begging me to understand an issue more and pass the email along to others.

Experience has taught me that, except for the jokes, many of these email-chain messages are complete fabrications. They are faux-heartrending-stories about fictional children. They take sometimes real quotes from sometimes real people, and either embellish them or take them out of context.

The reason I am writing about this today is that last week I got an email that was allegedly about the recent immigration rallies across the country. It purported to be a series of quotes from Latino/a leaders that, taken at face valued seemed very incendiary. The implication of the email was that these quote were given in the context of the recent nation-wide rallies, and that they signified the sentiments of those who attended. Because I what I will say below, I will not reprint the quotes here.

But, as I said, the collection of quotes was quite inflammatory. Even I, as a friend to many a Latino/a person, was concerned as I read the email. There's just one problem: every single quote appears to be taken out of context and misconstrued to stir up fear among white people. Some of the quotes cannot be verified by any independent source, and those that do appear to be accurate are from a completely different historical time and place...

These days, when I get these emails, unless they are the harmless jokes type I always turn to the website, Snopes.com. This is, in my opinion, one of the best online repositories for understanding "urban legends." An "urban legend" is a tale that takes on almost mythic proportions sometimes, but is almost always untrue.

For example, perhaps you have gotten the email that says that Bill Gates/and or/AOL is giving away money to folks who forward an email. The Snopes.com folks have shown that this claim is false.

Once upon a time, I also got an email that said Target stores "do not support veterans." The email also said that Target was owned by the French, and cuts off benefits to reservists who are called to active duty. Once again, Snopes.com was able to show that all these allegations are false.

A lot of these internet rumors get spread during political campaigns. For example, during the last presidential campaign, there was picture floating around that purported to show John Kerry and Jane Fonda on stage at an anti-war rally in the 1960s. But, as you can see from this Snopes investigation, the picture was a complete fabrication.

Such ugly rumors have also made the rounds on the internet concerning George Bush too. For example, there was a rumor circulating by email some years back that George Bush's house in Dallas (in Preston Hollow, literally about ten streets south of where I lived as a kid...) had a "deed restriction" on it that would not allow him to sell it to a black family...and that he supported this restriction.

The truth was far differrent:

Yes, Bush's house did have such a restriction on it in the 1930s when such racist restrictions were considered legal. (Fifty other houses in that 300 house subdivision also had them...).

But, no, such a restriction was not valid today, nor did Bush support it (or even know about it) until somebody mentioned it to him. Read about it here.

Well, the point of all this is to strongly encourage you (as strongly as I can) to always check out email rumors before passing them along....and especially before believing them. Like I said, a short trip to Snopes.com can often settle the question for you, and you won't be guilty of passing on erroneous, or even intentionally false information, to others.

So, as I said, last week I got a forwarded email about the recent immigration rallies. Because, as I will state below, I believe the email to be a dangerous gloss of the real facts, I will not reprint it here. Sufficed to say that it was a collection of quotes from various Hispanic leaders. The implication was clearly left that these quotes were recent, and that they were given in the context of the large rallies that have taken place all over the country.

It took Snopes.com about a week do so some research on these quotes. And what they have found is that in fact...
1) some of them are true...
2) some of them cannot be verified as true
3) ALL of them are taken out of context.

Virtually all of these quotes come from the 1990s, not 2006, and were a part of the debate in California over Proposition 187. You may recall that this was an incredibly controversial ballot initiative in California. It was passed, but it was later overturned by the courts. Some of the other things that are alleged in the email also happened; but are, again, taken out of context.

The facts are that the recent immigration protests were incredibly peaceful...in both word and deed. If you have not done so, please read my own summary of my experience at the Dallas rally. Half a million people converged on downtown, and there was not ONE arrest. That should tell you something.

Hopefully, it tells you that the event was peaceful. Hopefully, it tells you that the kind of harsh rhetoric cited in this email is of another time and place.

And even it if WAS of this time and place, hopefully you the reader are smart enough to know that the thoughts of a few radical leaders cannot possibly sum up all the beliefs of 500,000 marchers!!!

You can read Snopes' research on this topic here.

So, you have to ask yourself the question: why was this email created, why is being circulated, and why is it all happening NOW?

The answer: to try to make white people afraid.

Whoever created this email knows that many Anglos are justifiably shocked by the sheer size of these immigration protests. (most people of all colors are..) Perhaps they are even a little fearful about whether such crowds might get out of control, or cause mass social chaos. Whoever created this email knows all of this. And so, they have taken some truths, some falsehoods, and a lot of things out of context, and created a potent dose of FEAR.

Please, do not buy it. Please, do not forward it to others.

Please remember: 500,000 protesters. Not ONE arrest.

Please remember: A sea of white shirts, intended to symbolize peace.

Please remember: More American flags than I have ever seen in my life.

Please remember: Chants of "USA, USA!!!"

The immigration issue is being raised NOW to try and incite white people to be afraid.

This damaging email was created for the exact same reason.

Don't buy it.

Pos

Megamarch: Thoughts on Dallas' Historic March of April 9th

2006-04-29T21:37:53Z

The blog was originally posted here on April 9th.

Today was Palm Sunday. In church this morning, children waved palm branches back and forth as we sang our opening hymn.

It's widely believed by Biblical scholars that the Palm Sunday crowd that acclaimed Jesus with cries of "Hosanna" was not made up by the elites of that society, but by the marginalized. The elites wanted Jesus to make everyone shut up and go home. Elizabeth Morris Downie has this to say about the crowd:

"Those crowds turned out because they sensed somehow that the realm of oppression, cruelty and poverty which was all they had ever known was being overturned. Something new was at hand, not yet fully visible, still vulnerable, but clearly calling them to life. This new realm called so strongly that they dared to cry out, dared to be seen in public in such a procession..."

I thought about that a lot today after church, as Dennise, Maria and I took part in the "MegaMarch" downtown...a march organized in support of the rights of immigrants, and in opposition to wrongheaded immigration reform. It can now be said with confidence that somewhere around 500,000 people flooded the streets of downtown Dallas today. That's not only the single largest protest in the history of Dallas, it's the single largest protest in the history of Texas...

Dennise skipped church (don't tell...) to get down there early, and meet the other elected Latino/a officials who would be marching at the head of the parade. I'm proud to tell you that she was able to help lead the march, locked arm in arm on the front row, alongside our very good friend, Rafael Anchia (below, he's off screen, just to her left in the second picture...) on one side of her, and our friend Roberto Alonso on the other. Also leading the line were Hector Flores, Domingo Garcia, Dr. Elba Garcia , Pauline Medrano, Steve Salazar, and one of Dennise's mentors, Adelfa Callejo.

From left: Bill Callejo, Pauline Medrano, Adelfa Callejo, Hector Flores, Domingo Garcia

Continuing along the line: Domingo Garcia,(Roberto's son?), Roberto Alonzo, and Dennise (Rafael Anchia is just out of frame)

(stills from Channel 23)

Maria and I arrived a little after 1 pm, only to realize that the march was well underway at that point. In fact, we'd learn later that the police and organizers had actually started it early, because there was no more room for folks to line up behind them.

Maria and I marched with two other folks from our church, Ron Wilhelm and Marilaine Jones. There were probably more members there, but we were never able to hook up with them. We marched in line for almost three city blocks before we ever reached the STARTING POINT of the march. Here are a shot I took from my camera phone. As you can see, we're several blocks from the starting point of the march (the Cathedral on the right), and it's wall-to-wall people:

It went on like this for as far as you could see. In fact, Dennise called us on her cell phone about five minutes later, to say that she was already at city hall. That's when I knew this thing was going to be HUGE. Because her call meant that the entire parade route was packed with people, from start to finish, and beyond. Here is a link to some raw helicopter footage from Channel 5. (follow the link and click on the "raw footage" link for the best arial video I've seen...)

We marched down most of Ross, passing First Methodist on the way. The good folks of that church had set up with water and gatorade for the marchers. I saw my friend, Jay Cole, who is their minister of outreach. And I saw their Senior Pastor John Fiedler, fresh from preaching twice that morning, out in front of the church on the street with his shirt sleeves rolled up, dipping out cups of water as fast as he could. Made me proud of all of them.

We made a turn at the other end of downtown, traveling down one of the North-South streets. (The name escapes me now...) About then, the line divided into two waves that marched back down Commerce and Jackson Streets, toward City Hall. We got to City Hall, and stayed there for about an hour, leaving at around 4 pm. And even as we left, we could see folks STILL streaming into the area around City Hall for the first time...the march was still going on....THREE HOURS after it started!!!

Everyone in the crowd wore a white shirt, to symbolize peace. And almost everyone of the huge crowd waved American flags. I have never seen so many people in one place, and never seen so many American flags in one place.

And, to everyone who is reading about this march and more than a little afraid of the size and scope of it, hear this: half a million people marched through downtown today, and there was not one single arrest. Not one.

There were families of several generations walking side-by-side. Lots of those. There were mothers pushing baby strollers. Lots of those too. There were lots and lots of young people everywhere you looked. But nobody was throwing punches, or smashing in store windows. No one was swimming in the pool at city hall, or speaking words of violence.

Just half a million people there, to support America not badmouth it. They were there to show how much the love this country, not destroy it.

No one there, that I could see, had anything bad to say about white people or America. All they wanted was to be seen...to be acknowledged, to be affirmed as part of the American landscape. They wanted to show how they contribute to our society. In fact, we saw workers from the Magnolia Hotel, marching down the street in their work uniforms...straight from work, they came.

As we approached the stage at City Hall, we saw that there was a huge replica of the Statue of Liberty on the stage, and the song Neil Diamond's "America" was playing on the loud speaker.

All in all, an absolutely amazing day....
-------------------------------------------------
Although the bill has died in the Senate, those who support it are still alive. And they might well introduce something like it again. So, let me speak to parts of the bill that were most controversial to me personally. The bill out of the House would have made it crime to give aid to an immigrant who was here illegally. That House bill specifically referenced churches and clergy, and said that they too would be subject to a arrest should they aid illegal immigrants.

Imagine what this would mean for our friends over at North Dallas Shared Ministry! Imagine how much THEY might be in jeopardy each day! Or imagine what might happen to any minister anywhere who hopes to aid someone coming in off the street!

Such legislation is anti-Christian. That's right. You heard me say it...anti-Christian. I challenge anyone to point out the scripture where Jesus tells us to only help those from your home country. You know my email address...find it and send it to me. Go ahead.

In fact, several times in the Gospels, the local folks get really ANGRY at Jesus precisely BECAUSE he tells them to help those who are from foreign lands!!

Imagine if this law had been in effect at the feeding of the five thousand. You know that story...five thousand men --so, it was probably twenty thousand total-- gathered by the shores of Galilee. They are hungry. They are tired. It's late in the day. And so, the Bible says, Jesus "has compassion" on them. And through the miracle of the fish and loaves there is enough food for all.

Odds are that, among twenty thousand folk, there were a few that were immigrants from foreign countries. I mean, just do the math! There was no admission gate. Folks just came out by the lake shore. Can you imagine the scene? Just after Jesus gets done feeding these people, the authorities arrive:

"Um...I'm sorry Jesus...we're going to have to take you in....you've just given fish and bread to some illegal Samaritans. You have the right to remain silent...anything you say can be used against you...."

Outrageous!

Or, imagine that there was a wall between Samaria and Israel. (You will remember that one of the other provisions of the House bill was to build a wall to separate the US and Mexico). Had there been a wall between Samaria and Israel, there might not have ever been a "Parable of the Good Samaritan." And, of course, the whole POINT of that parable is to remind us how our "neighbor" is often the person we despise...the person from a different country and race...the person we think we have nothing in common with.

But beyond the bad ideas of these proposed bills, we must confront an ugly truth. The ugly truth is that Latinos and Latinas are
being used in this debate as political footballs for the upcoming election. This issue is being raised now for the same reason that the issue of gay marriage was raised before the last election. Because some people in our society know that spreading fear and dividing people sells.
----------------------------

Can you tell I feel a little passionately about all this? Well, I do. There's nothing like marrying someone named "Garcia" to help crystalize the issues for you. It becomes about your family. It becomes the stories of people you love most dearly in the world.

So, I want to tell you some of my own frustration these last two weeks, and some of the things I have heard said about Latinos and Latinas. For example, I have heard radio commentators encouraging us to remember that most Hispanics are not illegal immigrants. Which is, of course, true. Most Hispanics aren't immigrants of ANY KIND. Most Hispanics are proud and contributing members of our society, and people of deep and abiding faith. AND! Some of them have been here longer than you....

Which reminds me of a story.

When Dennise was in Junior High in Irving, she had to take Texas History, as we all do in Texas public schools. And she came home one day and her Mom, "Ma, we're learning about the Alamo in school!"

To which her mother said, "Oh! You had relatives that fought at the Alamo."

So, the next day, Dennise returned to school and gleefully told her teacher, "I had relatives that fought at the Alamo!!!"
To which the teacher asked her, "Which side?" Well, Dennise had never considered this. As an Irving girl her whole
life, she'd never thought about "which side."

So, she went home to ask her mother, "Ma, which side?"

To which her mother told her, "Oh, Mija, the side that won."

There are Hispanic families here in Texas that predate any of the rest of us. Some even once fought on what we assumed then was the "other" side. But they have been proud Americans for decades.

The other thing I have heard in the past week are ugly stories about how Latinos and Latinas do not assimilate. There are ugly things being said about people who speak Spanish as a first language, and the claim is being made that they'll never learn English.

Let me say this: I do not know a SINGLE Hispanic family where the parents do not want their children to learn English, learn it fast, and learn it well. Not one. In the families I know, in fact, they sometimes do not even speak Spanish to their children, in the hopes that the children will assimilate faster.

When my father-in-law, Richard Sanchez Garcia, was a boy in West Dallas, he made a mistake that he didn't know was a mistake. He went to his neighborhood Dallas Public School and he spoke Spanish one day. For this grave sin, a teacher locked him in the closet for the rest of that day.

He never forgot that lesson. And when he had his own children, he chose to not teach them Spanish at home, to the point that they had to pick it up by osmosis...at family gatherings around the tamales and menudo. Eventually they did pick it up.

But, paradoxically, thirty-years-later, when his own son, Richard Garcia Jr, got to school (not knowing more than a couple hundred words in Spanish) they took one look at his brown skin and put him in a Bilingual Education class!!

There is a lot of ignorance about Latino/a culture out there. And I certainly do not claim to know all there is about the culture myself. But I DO know enough to know this: The race card is being played by certain politicians, and it's been played here to divide
us all against each other. And we should not stand for it.

Maybe you have seen the pictures of the young people protesting in the past weeks, skipping school in many cases (something, by the way, I can't condone...). And I know what some of my friends have been thinking. They've been thinking "Look at all those unassimilated brown folks!!"

But nothing could be farther from the truth. As Macarena Hernandez wrote in the Dallas News last week, most of those kids are the children and grandchildren of immigrants. They speak English quite well. They have iPods, and they buy their clothes at The GAP. In some ways, this fight over immigration is not evern their fight. But they are, in fact, standing up for their parents and their grandparents. They are, in fact, living out one of our great commandments: honor thy father and mother.

Today was a day that honored all Americans.

And, as a person of faith, it was a day that reminded me a lot of Palm Sunday. Because, in every way imaginable --both at church and this afternoon-- that's what today was.

Prairie Chapel Road (The Song)

2006-02-05T05:47:35Z

Hey Everyone:

Thanks to Radial for posting the info about my new song, Prairie Chapel Road.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/8/20/215542/341

I was honored to be able to play this song for the families and vets who are gathered at Camp Casey, during Friday's prayer vigil. Many of them came up to me afterwards and said, "That's our song!!" So, more than anything, I'm moved that something I wrote has moved them.

You can listen to the song here (download)

You can stream the song here

Read about my Monday visit to Camp Casey that inspired the song here. (Lyrics available here too)

Read about the Friday Prayer Vigil, and the families reactions to it here.

"Not in Our Name has made an incredible video that uses the song as a soundtrack.

Low Quality

High Quality

Close to a thousand people have downloaded the song this past week, and I'm really gratified that it's resonating with people, and seems to sum up their experience of Camp Casey for so many.

I'm trusting that through the blogs, the word can continue to get out, and hopefully more and more people will be inspired to get involved. So, feel free to share the song with anyone you wish.

Hope you enjoy it!

Eric Folkerth