There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled – in short, from the perspective of those who suffer.

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from "A Reckoning made at New Year 1943" given to his friends at Christmas 1942

Regular readers know I'm a huge fan of the work of René Girard. For those who are unfamiliar with Girard a quick overview so I can get to the point I want to make.

A central aspect of Giard's thought is how mimesis creates rivalry and how that rivalry gets defused through scapegoating.

The basic dynamic behind mimetic rivalry is simplicity itself. The central observation is that humans imitate each other (mimesis is the Greek word for imitation). But this tendency among humans inexorably leads us into rivalry and competition.

Girard describes this as a process of triangulation. We see somebody desiring an object. Due to imitation I begin to desire the same object. And with both of us desiring the same object a rivalry forms between us. This--mimetic rivalry--is the root cause of violence.

I agree with Girard about all this. But I'd like to argue that mimetic rivalry is not the fundamental, root dynamic. Specifically, Girard's model of triangulation presupposes a backdrop of scarcity. There is only one object of desire but there are two people. Thus, there competition between the two people to obtain the single object.

But what if there were two objects, one for each person? In that case, in a situation where there is "enough" or surplus, we don't have triangulation. In abundance we'd have mimesis but no rivalry.

My point here is that the anxiety produced by scarcity is what makes mimesis violent. That is, mimesis does not necessarily lead to violence. But mimesis does lead to violence in a world of real, potential or perceived scarcity. Thus I'd argue that anxiety, rather than mimesis, is the root cause of violence.

I'm not enough of a Girard scholar to know if this is an observation he's already made and addressed. My guess is that he has.

Regardless, my argument here is that fear is the root cause of human sinfulness.

Our bible class at church recently wrapped up a series on 1 Thessalonians, a study led by my ACU colleague Trevor Thompson. Trevor is a historian and NT scholar in our College of Biblical Studies.

One of the texts we wrestled with is 1 Thessalonians 4.3-4. From the NIV:

It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable...

In the NIV there is a note attached to the phrase "control your own body." The note reads:

Or learn to live with your own wife; or learn to acquire a wife

Obviously, there is some interpretive ambiguity here. Is Paul saying "learn to control your body" or is he saying "learn to live with your wife" or is he saying "go acquire a wife"?

The translation "go acquire a wife" might seem strange, but we've seen Paul recommend marriage elsewhere in his letters as a means to controlling lust:

1 Corinthians 7:9
But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. 

Admittedly, this isn't the most romantic motivation for marriage, but it does show that interpreting 1 Thess. 4.4 as "go acquire a wife" as a means to "avoid sexual immorality" wouldn't be strange to see in Paul.

And if that's the case then why do most translations go with "body" over "wife" in 1 Thess. 4.4?

The word in question here is skeuos. Skeuos doesn't mean body or wife. It means vessel. Thus, some "word for word" translations go with that more literal meaning:

ASV:
that each one of you know how to possess himself of his own vessel in sanctification and honor...

NASV:
that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor...

KJV:
That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour...

The interpretive issue, then, is what Paul might be referring to when he says "vessel." For both bodies and wives are referred to as vessels in the New Testament. And, as we've seen, both meanings make sense in the text. In order to avoid sexual immorality Paul might be saying "control your body" or "acquire a wife." The first recommendation is more straightforward (particularly to modern readers of the bible), but the latter meaning is also consistent with Paul (e.g., 1 Cor. 7.9).

But there is a third possibility here as well. Specifically, skeuos is also a euphemism for the male sexual organ--the penis.

(See, now you know why I'd be blogging about this.)

In 1 Samuel 21:4-5 we find an exchange between David and the priest Ahimelek. David and his men are on a mission and they are hungry. David asks for food and Ahimelek says the only bread on hand is the consecrated bread. Ahimelek is willing to give this holy bread to David as long as his men are ceremonially pure. As Ahimelek says (v. 4):

“I don’t have any ordinary bread on hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here—provided the men have kept themselves from women.”

David responds (v. 5):

“Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men’s bodies are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!”

[Before going on, some comments about this text. First, many will recall that this is the text that Jesus cites in his debates with the Pharisees about eating on the Sabbath day (c.f., Matthew 12.1-8).

Second, this text also illuminates why Uriah did not return to have sex with this wife Bathsheba after David called him in from the front lines. Israelite men purified themselves before battle and maintained it during battle. David's response to Ahimelek is that his warriors are still in this state of ritual purity as "women have been kept from us."]

In 1 Sam. 21.5 David's literal words are not "the men's bodies are holy." His literal words are "the vessels of the men are holy." This rendering is again best picked up by more literal translations:

ASV:
the vessels of the young men were holy

Vessel here seems to be a more straightforward reference to the male sexual organ than to bodies generally. The Hebrew word here is kli and in the Old Testament kli is never used as a reference for the body. So David seems to be making a comment about the male member/penis, that the members/penises/"vessels" of the men were holy.

This interpretation is strengthened when we note that the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament used by the NT writers) translates kli in 1 Sam. 21.5 as skeuos, and that skeuos was used as a euphemism in ancient Greek writings as a euphemism for the penis. More, the Latin equivalent for skeuos is vas, and vas was also used as a euphemism for the penis by the ancients.

In light of all this, NT scholar Jay Smith concludes (link to his paper making this argument):

It seems necessary, then, to propose another translation of 1 Thess 4:4...I offer the following: "that each one of you know how to control your own member in a holy and honorable way," in which "member" could be understood simply as "body" but strongly hints at the meaning "sexual organ."

In short, Paul's recommendation for avoiding sexual immorality is for the male readers of his letter to "control their penises," though Paul uses a euphemism (vessel) to get this idea across.

And if that's the literal meaning of the text, I'm wondering what a dynamic equivalent, Message-like rendering might be?

My proposal:

Men, here's the best way to avoid sexual immorality: Keep your pecker in your pocket.

Recently in the prison bible study I was teaching about the "two wisdoms" text in the book of James. After reading the description of the wisdom from below we turned to read the description of heavenly wisdom:

James 3.17-18
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive...

We didn't get to the end of verse 18. We got stuck right there.

Submissive.

If you ever want to experience a tough teaching or preaching challenge try preaching the word "submissive" to a group of male maximum security inmates.

But this word doesn't just stick inside a prison. Few of us have any interest in being submissive. I don't.

So here's what I said to the guys in the study.

When we think of submission we shouldn't think of it being one-directional and asymmetrical, where one group or person asks another group or person to submit. In those instances you end up creating a power differential, with one group dominating and lording over another group. That's not what James has in mind.

What James has in mind is what I'll call an economy of submission.

An economy of submission is the mutual, reciprocal, flowing exchange of submission. More, it's an economy of gifts freely given and received. This is the notion of mutual submission, servant-heartedness, and koinonia. The vision here isn't one group trying to get another group to submit. That's an exercise of power. Rather, the vision is of participating in loving community with each responsive to the needs of the other.

An economy of submission. An economy of gifts.

I've been reading a lot of liberation theology lately.

("Why?" you might ask. Well, I do have a taste for radical theological ideas. I like to test limits. But the other reason is biographical. When you start spending more time with criminals and the homeless your theology starts to...um...how to say it?...radicalize.)

Anyway, the thing I want to share with you is the relationship between commitment and theological reflection in liberation theology.

Perhaps you've heard of what has been called "God's preferential option for the poor." The father of liberation theology, Gustavo Gutierrez (pictured here), was the first to use the preferential option for the poor as a working theological assumption.

The basic idea behind the preferential option for the poor is the observation that, within the biblical narrative, God sides with the poor against the rich. A couple of examples from the NT:

From the Magnificat / Mary's Song (Luke 1.51-53):

[The Lord] has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.

From the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6.20-21, 24-25):

“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied...

“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now,
for you will go hungry..."

Other examples abound, from the prophets to the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

But this goes further. The point here isn't to be descriptive. That is to say, the preferential option for the poor isn't merely a biblical, exegetical or hermeneutical observation. The point isn't to say, "Hey, have you noticed how God is always siding with the poor?"

In liberation theology the preferential option for the poor is, rather, an issue of commitment, a commitment of being with and for the poor. This commitment is primary and precedes theological reflection. Theological reflection is secondary, following the commitment to stand with the poor.

This does connect back with the biblical observation that God stands with the poor. The notion here is that theology can't be done properly if it doesn't begin where God begins--with, among, and for the poor. In this the commitment to the poor is a regulating principle helping us sort good theology from bad theology, correct theology from incorrect theology, orthodoxy from heresy. Simplifying, if theology is on the side of the poor it is good, correct, and orthodox. If theology is on the side of the rich it is bad, incorrect, and heretical. The preferential option of the poor adjudicates between theologies.

The deep idea here is that there is no "view from nowhere" for theology. Though it often pretends to be, theology can't be objective and disinterested. Theology is a discourse of power. You are, after all, speaking for God. But more often than not the power that is being protecting isn't God's but vested interests, current power arrangements, and the status quo. The only way to dispel this illusion is to do theology from a very particular and disclosed location, from a publicly declared place of bias. This over against that. Like Jesus in the Sermon on the Plain: Blessed are the poor, woe to the rich.

In sum, liberation theology contends that if a location has to be picked, and it does, you have to pick the location of the poor. Theology starts there, with that bias. That bias is the only way to keep theology honest and located where God is located.

Perhaps my most favorite lines in all of poetry are the final lines from Franz Wright's poem "One Heart":

It is late afternoon and I have just returned from
the longer version of my walk nobody knows
about. For the first time in nearly a month, and
everything changed. It is the end of March, once
more I have lived. This morning a young woman
described what it’s like shooting coke with a baby
in your arms. The astonishing windy and altering light
and clouds and water were, at certain moment,
You.

There is only one heart in my body, have mercy
on me.

The brown leaves buried all winter creatureless feet
running over dead grass beginning to green, the first scent-
less violet here and there, returned, the first star noticed all
at once as one stands staring into the black water.

Thank You for letting me live for a little as one of the
sane; thank You for letting me know what this is
like. Thank You for letting me look at your frightening
blue sky without fear, and your terrible world without
terror, and your loveless psychotic and hopelessly
lost
with this love

 --"One Heart" from Franz Wright's Pulitzer Prize winning collection Walking to Martha's Vineyard

A couple of weeks ago I was discussing with some people the benefits of doubt in the church. In that discussion I mentioned the "gifts of doubt" I'd outlined in a old post. From that post, here are some of the benefits and gifts of doubt for the church:

1. Epistemological Benefits
This isn't news, but truth claims are more difficult in post-modernity. Particularly those outside of the range of science. Collectively, we've lost the meta-narrative (the big overarching story that shaped everyone's worldview) and have traded it in for more particular and local stories and perspectives. "Big T" Truth has been lost to "little t" truths. And this move hasn't been all bad. The stories of the weak and marginalized are being listened to in post-modernity.

Doubters tend to flourish in this context. The fractured epistemological situation of post-modernity demands a degree of epistemic humility. Doubters are very comfortable with this. Doubters tend to shy away from shouting meta-narratives at people who don't believe in meta-narratives. Rather than lamenting the post-modern situation, as the fundamentalists do ("No one believes in Truth anymore!"), the doubters will "get" the post-modern person and, due to certain shared sympathies, be more likely to articulate the faith in a way that makes sense to outsiders. Doubters trade in paranoid shouting for intelligible conversation.

2. Moral Benefits
As I've described in The Authenticity of Faith, building upon psychological research, dogmatism produces violence. True believers are dangerous.

Doubters, by contrast, tend to be pretty peaceable. Their self-suspicions tend to throw cold water on the violent impulses inherent in ideology and belief.

3. Missional Benefits
As a people sent into the world we are asked to receive the hospitality of others. To, in the words of Luke 10, "eat whatever is set before us."  Doubters are very comfortable sitting at these tables because doubters have a natural curiosity about outsiders. If you ask a group of people at your church the question "How many of you, out of curiosity, have read the sacred writings of other world religions?" most of the doubters will answer in the affirmative. In this doubters represent a reservoir of human capital in the church, a literacy that the church can utilize and lean upon. Within the church doubters will be the most knowledgeable persons about other world religions (and atheists). Consequently, doubters are often the best front line emissaries to outsiders.

4. Biblical Benefits
The assumption might be that doubters would make a church less biblical. However, in a certain key respect doubters often make the church more biblical. Many churches tend to be pretty selective in how they read the bible. These churches often "read around" the more difficult or embarrassing parts of the bible. You can see this vividly in the Lectionary itself. Doubters, by contrast, tend to be drawn to the more difficult parts of the bible and they insist that the church, as hard as this might be, pay attention to these passages. Doubters insist that the whole bible be read. Warts and all.

5. Experiential Benefits
Doubters tend to be acutely aware that life is broken and disordered. Doubters struggle mightily with the problem of pain, evil and suffering. Thus, doubters resist the triumphalistic impulses within the church and insist that the church recognize that God is often absent and silent in the face of horrific suffering. Doubters insist that the witness of the church be an authentic and honest confrontation with the experience of the world. No praise without lament. Doubters insist that we keep it real in the face of human experience.

6. Apologetical Benefits
Dogmatists insist that apologetics (the defense of the faith) should be conducted through argumentation. This is symptomatic of a hollowed out, hyper-rationalistic faith--belief as intellectual assent. In this view apologetics reduces to an intellectual debate. Not surprisingly, these efforts tend to flounder in post-modernity.

By contrast, doubters are themselves not wholly convinced by these intellectual proofs. Thus, doubters will embody a "new apologetics." Doubters will insist on an apologetics based upon invitation and participation rather than argumentation. Faith, to make any sense at all, must be practiced first.

If you are looking for an accessible, pastoral but academically informed study of the Psalms, particularly the lament psalms, let me point you to a book recently published by my ACU colleague Glenn Pemberton. Glenn's book--Hurting with God: Learning to Lament with the Psalms--is a wonderful book that would be great for personal bible study, a sermon series, or an adult/small group study.

One of the provocative things Glenn does in Chapter 2, with the help of Austin Holt, is to inventory the content of the Psalms and compare that content with the content of three different songbooks--Songs of Faith and Praise (used by my faith tradition the Churches of Christ), The Baptist Hymnal, and The Presbyterian Hymnal.

According to the system Glenn and Austin used, the three biggest categories of songs, for the Psalms and the three songbooks, were songs of Trust and Thanksgiving, songs of Praise, and songs of Lament. Using these categories Glenn and Austin inventoried the Psalms and the songbooks, calculating the percentage of the songs in each of the categories. (There were more than three categories. I'm just focusing on the biggest three.)

When Glenn and Austin graphed these percentages they found this:

Notice anything interesting?

Note that 40% of the Psalms can be classified as lament. The three songbooks don't even crack 20%. And two of them don't crack 15%

Share (%) of National US Income for Richest 1% (1974-2010)

Yesterday I posted about the Rolling Jubilee coming out of the Occupy Wall Street movement. As I noted in that post, I've been reading and thinking a lot about the issue of debt in light of the biblical witness.

Like a lot of Americans I've been pondering how America picked up the pieces in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Specifically, the bad debt of Wall Street was bailed out but the debt of individual American citizens was not. An individual in debt is described as irresponsible and greedy. For example, they buy "too much house" for their income. But a bank that goes into debt is "too big to fail" and is subsequently bailed out. The bank is not blamed for being greedy in extending loans they shouldn't have extended. But loans entail risk, and if there is no risk (if a bailout is available) the bank has no incentive not to pursue greed. It's a win/win.

In short, there is a moral asymmetry in how we view debt.

And let's dig deeper into this. A lot of people blamed the mortgage crisis on low-income people getting loans to buy big houses, more house than they could afford. That was a piece of the puzzle. But surveys of the mortgage crisis have shown that these weren't the bulk of the loans that became distressed. Most of the loans that fueled the mortgage crisis were second loans on houses. In the language of some economists, what was going on was that many Americans were using their homes as ATM machines, taking out a second loan on the house to free up some cash. These, and not first-time low-income homeowners, were the bulk of the loans that became distressed.

Why were people taking out second loans on their houses? Two reasons. First, to pay off other debt (e.g., medical, school). Second, to experience facets of middle class life that were growing increasingly inaccessible.

Let me explain that.

Since the 1970s middle class incomes have remained stagnant or have declined. A certain standard of living that was financially accessible to the middle class in the 70s has been harder and harder to achieve. But this erosion of income, as it gradually shifted from the bottom 99% to the top 1%, has been largely masked and hidden from view. Masked and hidden by what?

Debt.

As incomes fell or leveled off since the 70s households have held onto middle class lifestyles by going into debt. Either credit card debt or mortgage debt (those second loans on houses that fueled the housing crisis). And one could argue that the political and economic "powers that be" were more than happy to extend this line of credit to Americans because it masked the real erosion of income that was taking place. Debt kept the middle class docile, feeling like the American Dream was still a reality while it was fading rapidly away. The facade of the middle class was being propped up with debt. It was a house of cards waiting to collapse.

Here's a description from a NY Times editorial summarizing this research:

Recent research by economists from the International Monetary Fund and academia offers some new insights about income inequality, with important implications.

The researchers compared the top 5 percent of United States households from 1983 to 2007 with the remaining 95 percent. What they found is that as the rich got richer in the decades before the Great Recession, everyone else tried to maintain his standard of living by going deeper into debt. As income inequality grew over that period so did debt levels, because the rich increasingly invested their growing wealth in bonds and bank deposits, in effect providing money for ever more lending to the poor and middle class.

The top group’s increasing wealth, and the bottom group’s increasing reliance on debt, spurred the growth of the financial sector. But with ever increasing debt, the financial system — and the broader economy — became ever more vulnerable to crisis. 

What we are witnessing in all this might be described as captialism's version of debt peonage, with the rich lending to the poor leading to greater and greater income inequality and debt bondage.

The point here is that when Wall Street was bailed out a key part of the problem was never addressed: income inequality and the stagnation--since the 70s--of middle class wages. All that was "bailed out" during the financial crisis was a mechanism--debt--that has been used to hide income inequality to convince the middle class that it still exists.

I recently read Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber. (Graeber is a leader in the Occupy Wall Street movement and is the one often credited with coining the phrase "We are the 99%.")

Reading Debt has made me more thoughtful about debt and debt cancellation. Debt cancellation is deeply woven into the biblical narrative, most notably in the Year of Jubilee. In fact, the Lord's Prayer is a prayer of debt cancellation, a Prayer of Jubilee:

Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And the debts of the Lord's Prayer are as economic as they are moral.

In light of that, let me point you to something coming out of OWS, the Rolling Jubilee. In the Rolling Jubilee individual debt is purchased by other individuals and then forgiven, Jubilee-style.

Matthew Yglesias describes the idea and effort this way:

How does that work? Well, all kinds of debt gets "securitized" these days. Instead of a bank just lending money and collecting interest, it sells the rights to that income stream as an Asset Backed Security. By buying up a diverse array of ABS you can end up with less exposure to idiosyncratic risk than if you're just lending. But what happens when securitized loans go bad? Well they become "distressed debt" that can be purchased for pennies on the dollar. So in theory you can find a loan with a face value of $100 and buy it for just $15. That's supposed to be a kind of risky investment—a bet that the loan will actually pay off in the end. But the Rolling Jubilee concept is to turn it into a random act of kindness. Just write off the loan! 

The idea is to donate money so that bad debt can get purchased for pennies and then cancelled. In this way the debt is forgiven, it goes away. You get to "bail out" people the way the government bailed out Wall Street.

Yglesias goes on to ask some questions wondering if this idea--debt cancellation--is better than direct charity, simply giving poorer people the money, or if we should give money to poorer people who don't have any debt.

Those are points well worth making. For my part, my resonances with the Rolling Jubilee are deeply biblical.

UPDATE:
Here's a positive review of the Rolling Jubilee from Forbes which also discusses how the Jubilee gets around IRS tax issues.

As a psychologist, one of the things that has interested me about the recent Presidential election has been all the post-election talk about "epistemic closure" on the political right.

In this polarized electorate we often hear the word "propaganda" thrown around. Fox News is propaganda for the right, but Fox News came into being to combat the left-leaning propaganda of the mainstream media. And it's always been hard to adjudicate between those claims as one man's propaganda is another man's "fair and balanced."

But in the wake of the recent election many have suggested that something was decisively revealed about the poverty of information coming from places like Fox News and the talk radio of the right. Specifically, it seemed that many Republicans were absolutely convinced that their candidate was going to win the election. Perhaps even in a landslide. Thus, as the results from battleground states rolled in on election night there was collective disbelief and shock among the GOP. Reality was crashing in upon belief.

How did that happen?

For those who were closely following the Presidential polls heading into election night this shock was a bit of a head-scratcher. Anyone who had a clue knew that President Obama was leading when the polls opened and was the odds on favorite to win on election night. True, it was close, battleground leads were only a few percentage points, so it was a very real possibility that Obama would lose. Turnout was going to be key. But no one looking at the data would have doubted that Obama was the favorite.

And yet, as I talked with various Republican friends--before and after the election--they seemed to be living in another world. Had they not been following 538, Pollster, Real Clear Politics, and Intrade (among others)? All these sites were aggregating and averaging the polls--both left and right leaning--and all had Obama favored. All of them. And nothing fancy or skewed or biased or book-cooking was going on. You didn't need to be a quant to figure this out. Anyone could have pulled out a calculator and performed a simple average of the polls and gotten the electoral map 100% correct. The data was there. Available to anyone with a calculator. So why couldn't many on the right see it?

To be clear, I don't mean to say that people shouldn't hope against the data. Or wish the data was wrong. Or look for contrary evidence. We all do this. But when we do this we generally know we are, well, hoping. We know we are crossing our fingers. We know we are the underdog. And underdogs do win.

So I'm not talking about that. What I'm talking about is what some have called epistemic closure. Feeling dogmatic rather than doubtful. Mistaking emotion for information (Exhibit A: Peggy Noonan). Feeling certain rather than hopeful. Failing to realize that you are, in fact, the underdog.

How did it happen to so many on the right? What was the source of the shock?

Some have blamed the blind hatred of Obama, a hatred so hot that it was, well, blinding. Blind to what many Americans were seeing who were looking at both the President and the polls without a filter of rage.

Some have blamed Fox News for systematically deluding its viewers, feeding them red meat rather than facts for four years, particularly during the election season. Because in the end, Fox was found to be biased in 2012 and the mainstream media got it right.

For my part, I can't say for sure what happened. All I know is this: something happened. I saw it close up in personal interactions, both before and after the election. People were living in an alternate reality. And the epistemic shock on election night was real. Not the shock of loss. That's to be expected. I'm talking about an epistemic shock, the shock of experiencing a belief system catastrophically collide with empirical reality.

Because reality wasn't hidden heading into election night. Obama was the favorite and Romney was the underdog. It was there for all to see.

All you needed was a calculator.

(Pictured above: Graph of Intrade odds for Obama winning Ohio from October 9 to November 7. Note that Intrade had odds of Obama winning Ohio the night before the election at just under 70%.)

A lot of psychological research is based upon self-report questionnaires. And for a lot of things, more things than you'd imagine, this methodology totally works. There are many things that people can accurately share via self-report. For example, if they are an introvert or an extrovert. If they are politically liberal or conservative. If they are anxious or depressed. In addition, there are many cases where perception is reality. For example, can you have a good sense of humor if no one thinks you are funny? The perception that you aren't funny is what makes you not funny. Same goes for a lot of spiritual variables. If you think God is angry with you and is wanting to damn you to hell that perception is going to be spiritually determinative.

That said, there are many things that don't lend themselves to self-report. Many things we'd like to assess have issues with what psychologists call social desirability. Some things are so socially toxic we can't admit them to ourselves or others. You can't walk up to people and ask, "Are you a racist?" Hard to get a straight answer on that. For the two reasons I noted. Few people would own the label racist even though, well, they are a racist. And even if the person were a proud and self-identified racist they might not want you to know this. Either way, you're not going to get a straight answer.

But there are also problems on the virtuous end of the spectrum.

With the rise of what has been dubbed positive psychology many psychological researchers have taken an interest in the psychology of virtue. An obvious research question to ask about virtue has to do with the correlates of virtuous people. What are loving people like? Grateful people? Courageous people? Wise people?

Well, to get a start on this question you need to identify these virtuous people in relation to the general population. But how do you assess virtue? Can it be done with self-report? Some virtues might be assessed this way. But think about a virtue like humility. Can you ask a person "On a scale from 1 to 10 rate how humble you are."? How's a humble person supposed to answer that question? With a ten? A one? Something in the middle?

But humble people do exist and psychologists are interested in finding them. We have some questions we'd like to answer about them. How'd they get to be that way? What are they like, these humble people?

The point is, research into virtue is interesting and potentially important. But assessing virtue is pretty tricky.

One way to crack this nut is to use a peer nominating procedure. One of my thesis students, Grace, used this technique in her research about wisdom. As a part of her research Grace had members of a church identify people within their congregation who were exemplars of wisdom. Who are, Grace asked, the wise among you? Gathering these names Grace identified people who were nominated many times. These individuals were pulled to make a "wisdom group" which could be compared with the rest of the congregation. The goal was to see if there were any personality differences between the wise group and the others.

I wonder if churches might benefit from techniques like this?

We all know that an important facet of spiritual formation is imitation, following a model. As St. Paul said, "imitate me as I imitate Christ." But most churches can't get a start on this process because they don't know who to point to as models. Nomination procedures like the one Grace used might help here. Such procedures might identify virtue coaches, people who we might set before the church as resources for those wanting to acquire particular virtues.

At the very least, by pointing these people out we can simply watch them and do as they do.

...was because of immigration and Latino/Hispanic voters. America is getting darker, not whiter.

I'm from Texas and we get this. George W. Bush understood this with his "compassionate conservatism." And so did Rick Perry, our current governor.  You may have noticed that Rick Perry, while being a Tea Party favorite, articulated a moderate stance on immigration during the GOP primaries. Because he's from Texas and knows the score. And yet, Perry was blasted from his right by Mitt Romney.

I think at that moment the election was sealed, demographically speaking. George W. Bush won 54% of the Hispanic vote in 2004. Mitt Romney? He won 27%. The lowest for a GOP nominee in a generation. This despite the growth of the Hispanic electorate between 2004 and 2012. I get the Tea Party stance on small government. I dig their libertarian sensibilities. But their antipathy toward people of color cost them this election.

I think Mike Huckabee nailed it last night on Fox News. GOP efforts at reaching out to people of color have been "pathetic." And why is that? As I've written about before, I think the GOP has an ethnocentrism problem. It is a party that struggles with "generalized prejudice" toward outgroup members. Case in point: Bill O'Reilly on Fox News last night effectively called all people of color lazy slackers and moochers, people who want handouts and "stuff."

No wonder Obama won.

That, in my opinion, is what needs to get fixed in the GOP. The moderate "compassionate conservatism" needs to make a comeback.

RELIGION DOOMED / FREUD ASSERTS 

Says It is at Point Where It Must Give Way Before Science 

That was the headline from the New York Times that greeted Americans in December of 1927. Freud had just published his provocative analysis of religious belief in his book The Future of an Illusion in which he suggested that religious superstition will give way to a more modern and scientific view of the world.

And not much has changed since 1927. We still see headlines and book titles like this. The End of Faith. The God Delusion. Breaking the Spell.

But was Freud right?

In The Future of an Illusion Freud makes the argument that religious belief is, at root, a means to repress and assuage anxiety in the face of a cold, hostile, impersonal and forbidding universe. Freud writes:

There are the elements, which seem to mock at all human control: the earth, which quakes and is torn apart and buries all human life and its works; water, which deluges and drowns everything in a turmoil; storms, which blow everything before them; there are diseases, which we have only recently recognized as attacks by other organisms; and finally there is the painful riddle of death, against which no medicine has yet been found, nor probably will be. With these forces nature rises up against us, majestic, cruel and inexorable; she brings to our mind once more our weakness and helplessness...

According to Freud we cope with these feelings of "weakness and helplessness" by creating a set of consoling religious beliefs:

And thus a store of ideas is created, born from man’s need to make his helplessness tolerable... Here is the gist of the matter. Life in this world serves a higher purpose... Everything that happens in this world is an expression of the intentions of an intelligence superior to us, which in the end, though its ways and byways are difficult to follow, orders everything for the best that is, to make it enjoyable for us. Over each one of us there watches a benevolent Providence which is only seemingly stern and which will not suffer us to become a plaything of the overmighty and pitiless forces of nature. Death itself is not extinction, is not a return to inorganic lifelessness, but the beginning of a new kind of existence which lies on the path of development to something higher… In the end all good is rewarded and all evil punished, if not actually in this form of life then in the later existences that begin after death. In this way all the terrors, the sufferings and the hardships of life are destined to be obliterated.

So that's the basic idea, Freud's basic argument. Religious belief is an existential fix, an anxiety reduction coping mechanism.

No doubt you are familiar with this argument. Since that New York Times headline in 1927 this argument has been a staple in the debates about the origins and function of religious belief.

But was Freud right?

That's a really hard question to answer. Which is one of the reasons why I think Freud's line of attack has proved to be so durable and unsettling. How could you go about evaluating Freud's claim?

Could you, for instance, walk up to people at your church and say, "Hey Sally, let me ask you a question. Do you believe in God because you're afraid of death and your eventual extinction?"

Your social skills aside, could Sally even answer that question? Honestly and truthfully? Could any of us?

And what if Sally did say "No," would you trust her answer?

As I point out in The Authenticity of Faith this is what makes Freud's argument so powerful and insidious. Freud effectively impugns the motives of the witness. By appealing to unconscious fears and defense mechanisms the believer no longer knows his or her own mind. After Freud, you don't trust Susan's answer. Or even your own. You lay awake at night wondering, "Am I fooling myself with all this religious stuff?"

This is why, I think, no one has made much progress on evaluating Freud's assertions. From 1927 to the present no one had figured out how to get around this data collection problem.

But I think I might have figured out a way to make progress on this question. Which why, when I have fits of vanity, I think the The Authenticity of Faith represents a change in what has been, since 1927, a static and tired debate. The Authenticity of Faith describes a method of cracking the Freudian nut along with some preliminary research aimed at answering the question "Was Freud Right?"

So was Freud right?

Well, the answer is complicated. You'll have to read the book. Let's just say that Freud wasn't all wrong. But he also wasn't totally right.