Conservative Primates

Much of the time, I look at a quote like this, and I have something useful to say about religion, or tolerance or homosexual rights...

The head of the Anglican Church and Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams has said that he fears that the Church may split over the row sparked by the appointment of openly gay US bishop, Gene Robinson, in 2003.

"We have a difficult meeting ahead of us with many challenges and many decisions to make," Dr Williams told reporters as he arrived in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday.

Conservative primates are angered that the recently-installed head of the American Episcopal Church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who has publicly backed Mr Robinson, is attending the meeting.

Today, though... Today I just want to make a joke about "Conservative Primates." (This is what happens when I don't consume anything but coffee until 1pm.)

The Fall of the Old World
[Monkeys]

Wendel Archibald IV slid out from under the satin sheets of his pillow-top king sized bed, slipping on a pair of doe-leather penny loafers and tightening the belt of his hand tailored robe. He smiled out the giant window of his master bedroom, overlooking the luxurious sprawl of Primate City.

What did I ever do to deserve this, he wondered to himself, watching the doves play in the early morning mist. Oh, that's right, he concluded, chuckling as he lit a cigar. He looked to the east, down at the massive factory his father had built, taking in bananas and sugar, chemicals by the truckload and pumping out black smoke, toxic river waste and Langur Brand Banana Chips. Not to mention it's other exports: carpal tunnel syndrome, broken families and wafer-thin paycheques. I was born! Wendel laughed, long and loud, his hearty chuckle echoing down the many corridors of his luxurious estate.

It was good to be a chimp.

***

Later, the bright blue sky slashed with thin white clouds, Wendel sat down with one of his top analysts, Barry Singleton, a cold-hearted baboon from the south side of the city. His head for numbers and his ruthless nature had brought him to the top of his graduating class and made him very wealthy through shrewd investment. Wendel appreciated his advice and didn't even worry about the fact that he was a baboon. Some people were bound to rise above their station, even if they'd never be the equals of Wendel and his family.

"Your factory is being eyed by an environmental group for its waste drainage into the Macaque river." Barry drank water and munched on an energy bar, even surrounded by the gorgeous dessert trays and the intoxicating aroma of coffees, teas and baking bread here at the café du singerie. There's just no accounting for the tastes of nouveau riche.

"What do you suggest, Barry?"

"Donald is working with Senator O'Reilley, thinks he can make some kind of delaying tactic, but you're best off actually doing something about the mess this time. You can't keep that pack of dogs off forever."

Wendel looked down at his quiche, suddenly feeling ill. "That kind of talk isn't what I like to hear during my repast."

Barry swallowed the last bit of his ugly brown granola and honey concoction, then slowly consumed an entire glass of Banyan Springs mineral water. Wendel fumed as he waited. "It's not like you can blame me. The New World party is getting the public on their side about environmental damage. Our side's been running interference for longer than either of us have been alive, but they're starting to see the soft spots in our peel, if you know what I mean."

Wendel ground his teeth together. He was about two seconds from going apeshit, but remembered his court-mandated anger management cases--god damned cops and there quotas weren't bad enough, he'd had to fall into the courtroom of some activist, commie judge from a college town--and held it in.

"Just get me results. The Archibald family name is synonymous with Primate City. We built this city and I will not see that legacy fall apart at the hands of some fleapicking termite-stickers."

Barry narrowed his gaze, looking down his snout through half-moon glasses. He straightened his tie and hesitated. For just a second, Wendel reveled in the sight of it.

Barry stood, glaring now, as if having reached a decision. "You need to think about your priorites. The Old World party is going nowhere, and even your allies are looking elsewhere for leaders. Stop flinging shit like this is fucking jungle and start learning what's what."

Wendel sat speechless and stunned as the baboon took a deep breath and walked toward the street. He swiveled in his chair, watching his analyst go, aghast. Barry stopped there, hands in his pockets and called out, "Oh, and you can pick up the check. That's all a rich, stodgy chimp like you is good for these days, anyway."



To be continued...
Only, probably not.



oh, and, yeah, I know that chimps aren't old world monkeys.
Shut up.

Wartime Leaders

((It's been almost a month. I just wasn't interested in writing this month... But now I've been drinking and reading and watching and... well, you be the judge.))

Just stop me if this has been done before...

I'm beginning to think that our decreasingly popular, kleptocratic president has been taking his cues from an ancient and powerful playbook. Briefly, Mr. Bush is the modern incarnation of a Constantine figure if ever I've seen one.

According the BBC documentary, The Rise and Fall of Rome, Constantine I used Christianity as his standard in war as he united the four squabbling partitions of a divided Rome. In the year 312 CE, as Constantine and his Western army descended on Rome, the emperor himself was not a follower of Christ. He lived in a world only recently willing to even accept the legality of that slave's religion. But something happened on the journey there. There is no historical proof of what he and his army witnessed—the common agreement is that it was a meteorite, though not large enough to leave a recognizable crater—but the interpretation that it was a sign from God is what is important. The Christian God, that is.

Now, his army bedecked in the symbology of Christ, Constantine attacked Emperor Maxientius, ruler of Rome, and won the battle of Milvian Bridge, taking it all as a sign of this new religion's glory. There is no proof of the emperor ever converting his faith, and there is no way anyone could argue that his policies or conqueror's stride were in any way consistent with the teachings of Christ, but he surely did bring this faith to the forefront of the empire. He dined with bishops. He built churches, some of which still stand today. He is as solely responsible for the popularity of European Christianity as any single person ever has been.

(Okay, you can argue with me and say that Jesus Christ was more important to the rise of this religion, but I would disagree with you. Admittedly, there would be no Christianity without him, or without the most famous four gospel writers, but Constantine made the Christian faith a very potent meme—something it would never have been without him.)

President Bush, oddly enough, is also a convert to Christianity. A born-again Christian. Studious readers of news and political happenings will remember the push in the Republican community to become dominate the Christian South of this nation—once a bastion for the Democratic party. The Neoconservative movement embraces the socially conservative aspects of modern American Christianity such as the nuclear family unit, homophobia and temperance (in the form of the war on drugs). It also embraces some old biblical philosophies: eye-for-an-eye punishment and the power of kings. (i.e. Tougher sentencing and strong military leadership from the federal seat.)

The president would like to paint himself as a military leader. He is fighting a war against heathens, leading his people under his Christian banner. Here, he and Constantine see eye to eye.

Religious decisions are quite often more political than rational or moral. Consider the separation of the Anglican church from the Catholic, motivated by Henry VIII's marital concerns in the popular consciousness, but saturated by deeply running divisiveness between the crown of England and the Holy See. I would posit that both George W. Bush and Emperor Constantine I made their religious decisions from motivations of politics. It is to gain allies, and not entrance to heaven for which they accept Christ into their hearts.

This all, of course, flies in the face of the spirit, letter and intent of Christ's teachings. Their wars demonstrate a profound ignorance for and disrespect of the very heart of those two millennia old sermons. To paraphrase twenty centuries of philosophical thought: All human life has value, and all God's people are equal in his eyes. Life is sacred, forgiveness is tantamount and the judgment of actions is the provenance of God only. These, to me, are the elements which remain constant and unchanging from schism to schism. They are the heart of every denomination which adheres to acceptance of holy trinity. These, in fact, are the single glorious part of that religion. All else that has come from it is, in my eyes at least, extraneous, deleterious and dangerous.

Leaders who invoke the name of God are missing the point. Religious society is a holdover from Judaism, crudely tacked on to the word of the man known as Jesus Christ. Christianity, at its aforementioned heart, does not seem to support a church, let alone a state. It encourages kindness, self-sacrifice, friendship, love, deference, respect and tolerance. Not war. Not imprisonment. Not the betrayal, slaughter and secret murder of allies, as in the case of Constantine. It does not condone asking the youth of this nation to sacrifice themselves, and certainly does not condone turning them into political pawns as an agent to keep a strangle hold on power. I won't tell you who did that part. You're smart enough to figure it out yourself.

Christianity's core elements do not seem like the appropriate set of ideas for a power hungry ruler to embrace in his quest for blood and glory. I can't imagine how this has happened, and more than twice, at that. I only offer a comparison.

((Holy shit... I sound like I actually believe in God or something. Whack, huh?))

Edicts; Allies

One thing organized religion has going for it--something disorganized spirituality will never have--is the issuing of edicts.

Recently the highest office in the Conservative Jewish faith (that is, neither Reform, nor Orthodox, in case you're taking notes) approved the ordaination of gay rabbis, and the practice of gay "commitment ceremonies." I'm not sure if that phrasing is just from the New York Times, or if it's going to be the accepted parlance in the future. There are two things I find pretty interesting about this, but first, I want to think about edicts for a moment.

"This is not like a papal edict," says Jonathan Sarna in the NY Times article, referring to the fact that individual synagogues will be allowed to make their own decisions as to whether they incorporate these changes into their daily practice. But isn't it? This is a powerful statement from a highly-respected body, giving their interpretation of the religion's most sacred documents. It's not something to be taken lightly. This has no less power to cause divisive rifts between members of the community than does the statement of a official with an ancient title.

I'm not an expert on the internal politics of the Jewish faith anymore than I am learned in their documents, history or canonical law, but one has to imagine that this is an important restructuring, and an event that will cause no small amount of change down the line. Sarna states that the change "has been widely expected," but that just means that there has been foresight, discussion and probably the religious equivalent of lobbying. The Reform movement has allowed both of these things for years. This is a change. This is a group agreeing to alter they way they see the world and changing their social contact. Essentially, this is politics.

Leaving that lie for one moment, the thing that most interests me about this is its effect on Politics. (Capital "P," Beltway politics and national elections.) Does this change the national debate on marriage? Isn't the major argument against homosexual marriage a religious one? Well, now we have a significant portion of one of America's major faiths saying that this isn't a bad thing; that their holy scriptures, in fact, do not forbid it. They will allow it in their temples. How is it any of our right to invade the sanctity of religion and refuse to recognize their collective action? They've changed their faith, and the government would pretend the power to refuse this change.

So how is a religious edict--particularly the infallible, far reaching papal kind--different from a new law, or (an even better comparison) a Supreme Court decision? This is meant to compare these two distinct social contracts; religion and government. Religion, many of us are born into. We do not leave the contract unless we are dissatisfied, and we do not tend to enter into a new religion without some strong compulsion (usually marraige). The government controls all within its sphere of influence by matter of geography more than birth, though citizenship is conferred upon all who are born within this influence.

When a religion or a political body changes a rule, or interprets an old one in a new way, all in the membership of that body must decide whether to follow along with this edict. We all have an inalenable right of disobedience, even more fundamental to our nature than any of the rights "protected" by constitutions around the world. Disobedience is curbed by incentives, but can never be completely eliminated. In a religious community, social pressures and learned guilt exert tremendous force over the faithful. Expected punishments in the afterlife may also be considered a negative incentive. Governments, through the power of a monarch, elected representatives or the collective will of the people, are empowered to locate and punish those who would choose not to heed an edict.

We are all disobedient on some level. Sinners sin. I can count the number of hours since I last broke the law on one hand. We all make calculations, weighing the negative consequences of our actions against the real or perceived benefits. When I listen to music which I "stole" from a record company, I understand that the likelihood of my being caught and punished is slim. Having a variety of music to listen to without paying what I perceive to be ridiculous costs outweighs that chance of punishment.

So, what will the costs be for ignoring this edict from the leaders of the Hebrew community? Probably very little, so long as the choice remains a local one. It may cause some hurt feelings or community scuffles, but it seems unlikely to have world-shaking implications. Although... perhaps these issues of deeply held conviction are stronger than I would guess: a collection of Canadian rabbis has already threatened a break with the Conservative movement as a result of this announcement (Again, according to the NY Times). These are the things schisms are made of.

(Though, in my interpretation, the Jewish faith has proven a great deal of solidarity in the face of schism in the past. Though their interpretations of scripture and law may differ, Reform and Orthodox Jews do seem to find much more common ground than, say, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, or Catholics and Protestants.)

But, perhaps, even if this does prove divisive--as it surely will not endear Conservative to Orthodox--perhaps American politics can use this as a uniting experience. Perhaps the liberal left can find "conservative," religious allies. The red-state party line is "small government," and a lack of interference. It holds God in high esteem. To continue to forbid unions between homosexuals in the face of a religious ceremony which cements it in the eyes of a church is ridiculous.