Yet another story of clean energy policy with the juice – it’s hard to keep up! Faith leaders from diverse communities made their case in the State House yesterday for energy efficiency and increased renewables:
Members are asking lawmakers to lift caps on solar energy and strengthen incentives for the development of community and low-income solar installations; invest in offshore wind development, with a focus on communities where coal-fired power plants have closed or are closing; ensure that energy efficiency programs reach low- and moderate-income homes and speakers of languages other than English; increase accountability for gas leaks, and reject ratepayer funding for new natural gas pipelines.
State Representative Lori Ehrlich, a Marblehead Democrat who has sponsored bills this session addressing gas leaks and mining, told coalition members they brought an important voice to the debate over energy policy.
“Policy decisions made in this building by virtue of who shows up to advocate so often revolve around other factors, such as cost and feasibility,” Ehrlich said. “Well, those things are important for sure, but what you bring to the table today is important, too: morality.”
Yes. We don’t just make decisions in our legislation based on the strictest sort of bean-counting. We have different bottom lines, that accord with our values. There are things you just wouldn’t do for a buck, and continuing fossil-fuel dependency is one of them.
There’s the potential for a broad and powerful coalition including lower-income communities, who could really most use the help instituting conservation measures; traditional enviro/climate constituencies, which skew wealthier; and now, the clean energy industry.
Faith leaders were critical to the health care push in 2005-06. May they have a similar impact here.
SomervilleTom says
I think we already have far too much superstition in government. The fact that we’ve done so little about climate change is in no small part a result of “faith-based” denial of climate change.
I think these actions by faith leaders are important, and I appreciate them.
i most emphatically do NOT want our legislators to bring even more religious motivations into their deliberations. I want them to make the right choices, I want their values to reflect mine, and I want their legislative choices to be based on the results of that.
I do NOT want them making legislation on the basis that God says so, the Bible says so, or because Pastor Bob says so.
stomv says
s’tom:
If the legislator is following the will of the people, it doesn’t matter why those thousands of citizens are following Pastor Bob. Fact is, they are.
If the legislator is leading the people, it sure does matter.
SomervilleTom says
I’m perfectly fine with faith leaders participating in hearings like anyone else.
Your distinction between legislators leading versus following the people in these matters is crucial.
I’m profoundly uncomfortable with elected officials citing belief, scripture, or religious dogma in their official public statements or in their conduct of their office. I don’t like it when Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) cites his religious beliefs or carefully-chosen excerpts from the Hebrew Scriptures when he, as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (not to mention his other committee assignments) declares that humans cannot possibly cause global warming. I don’t like it when government attempts to defund Planned Parenthood or block access to safe and legal abortions because of their religious objections to abortion or contraception. In a similar way, I don’t government officials citing their own religious beliefs in favor of government action on global warming.
I don’t like it when presidents use words like “crusade” to describe our policy in the Middle East, or assert that Americans are “God’s chosen people”.
Representing the will of the people is, of course, what democracy is all about, and I strongly support that.
jconway says
I think we’ve disagreed on this largely symbolic issue in the past, but I strongly feel there is a positive and progressive role for religion in the public square, just as there can be a negative one. I think the key is convergence. Issues like legalized gambling, opposing unjust wars, immigration reform, criminal sentencing reform, and the historic civil rights movement have all brought together faith leaders from diverse traditions and across the political and theological spectrum and I welcome those allies.
SomervilleTom says
I enthusiastically support the participation of well-informed people who are able to describe the negative impacts of all the things you mention and who help legislators make well-informed and reasonable policies that reflect those concerns.
I want no part of legislators who announce that they oppose these things because they are sins.
The pulpit is an appropriate and effective place from which to preach the sinfulness of various vices. Elected office is not.
jconway says
Obama gave the best speech of his presidency in a church, where he forcefully denounced racism as a sin, from its pulpit I might add-the same pulpit where the Sunday before its slain preacher who also happened to be a legislator gave his last sermon.
A pulpit many of the great African American political leaders of that area got their start. I would argue that man was a martyr and spoke in a prophetic voice, in the tradition of Dr. King and Malcolm X-both faith leaders, not to mention the bulk of the SNCC and CORE.
So many of the progressive movements heroes were men and women of the cloth, many were lay leaders, and many were not religious at all. But I do not care where the source of the morality comes from-it’s not just empiricism that guides our cause but morality and justice. Can’t delink them.
jconway says
He was clearly someone who didn’t separate his faith from his politics, and was censured by the Vatican for it. As were the Berrigan brothers, who you should be familiar with as an anti-war activist in the Maryland area. Charley made a pretty clear and easy call that this is a moral crisis, not just a question of science. And I think that’s hard to argue with, and frankly, if we are just sticking to the science we will lose.
The public needs to be moved to act, needs to understand that the sacrifices we need to make are for the greater good and are part of the fight for our nation’s soul, not just it’s profits. We can’t continue drowning the 3rd world in the present and our children and grandchildren in the future, if that’s not a cause calling for moral righteousness, i don’t know what is.
SomervilleTom says
I have no issue with ordained clergy holding elective office, and I have no issue with elected officials giving sermons from a pulpit.
I enthusiastically agree with you about Barack Obama’s sermon. It was clearly a sermon, and he was clearly speaking as in individual. He did not offer that material as a nationally-televised speech from the Oval Office.
Similarly, I welcome ordained clergy to elected office. I do not recall Mr. Drinan using his office to advance Roman Catholic dogma — his refusal to do so was why the Pope forced him to leave office.
I agree that climate change is a moral crisis. Presumably every person holds views that are shaped by their moral values. I place great weight on values (moral and otherwise) when I choose a candidate to vote for. I certainly hope that morality is not limited to faith leaders or ordained clergy (although I must say our current crop of GOP candidates and officials challenges that hope).
The unspoken presumption is that when statements are offered by “faith leaders”, they carry more weight than the same statements offered by more ordinary men and women. It is that implicit distinction that I’m uncomfortable with.
I agree with both Charley and you that climate change is a moral crisis as well as a scientific fact. I want my elected officials to hold and express that view in their personal, rather than formal, roles.
I don’t want to see religion insinuating itself even deeper into government. In my view, it has has already enough damage as it is.
paulsimmons says
…nor is morality.
“Do unto others” can be applied by (and to) agnostics and atheists.
Much of my opposition to casino gambling in Massachusetts – to cite one example – is based upon my opinion that enabling and expanding addiction is immoral public policy; in other words, sinful. The fact that I base that opinion on case studies and empirical data is moot.
Furthermore, a public official coming to a conclusion, based upon faith-based principles is okay with me, so long as that official is honest about his (or her) sources, and so long as that conclusion is consistent with federal and State constitutional protections.
It doesn’t mean that I’ll necessarily agree with those conclusions; merely that I respect the right to state them. In this sense, it is not only allowable, but a public duty to denounce “sin” when it adversely affects the public good.
jconway says
And perhaps to be charitable to Tom, it is when those conclusions are inconsistent with federal and state constitutional protections that he gets upset. And I would add in this case and some others, when faith is contradicting the clear scientific consensus on a given position. I don’t think he will find many here who disagree with that.
SomervilleTom says
Here’s my rub.
Let me offer ten statements from public officials that seem to fit your criteria:
1. Legalized gambling is a sin
2. Unrestrained emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere is a sin
3. Sexual activity between unmarried people is a sin
4. Sexual activity between people of the same sex is a sin
5. Sexual intercourse while using artificial contraception between an otherwise-fertile married man and woman is a sin.
6. Abortion is a sin (no exceptions, from the moment of fertilization onward).
7. Consumption of alcoholic beverages is a sin.
8. Working on the Sabbath is a sin
9. Dancing is a sin (many Southern Baptists assert this)
10. The use of any motorized conveyance is a sin
If I accept your argument, then I must accept all ten. While I’m perfectly ok with (1) and (2), I am absolutely and resolutely opposed to the others.
If an elected official wants to make any of the above statements in a church, in an interview where he or she is asked about their personal belief, or similar contexts, then I’m fine with them.
When they make those statements on the record, and as part of their conduct of their office, I feel awkward about (1) and (2) and I oppose and resent the rest.
paulsimmons says
You don’t have to accept an argument, just the officials’ right to make it – for whatever reason.
That said, this is somewhat of a straw man argument. I could list all kinds of progressive positions, complete with supportive Biblical footnotes. This kind of thing cuts both ways. For that reason, I’m less than inclined to limit the First Amendment rights of elective officials, no matter how reprehensible I might find the stated position.
SomervilleTom says
Nobody is talking about limiting the “First Amendment rights of elected officials”, for crying out loud. You sound like the anti-abortion crazies who argue that adding abortion coverage to a health plan limits their first-amendment rights to free exercise of religion.
There is a difference between official statements made from, for example, the rostrum of the State House floor and, for example, a pulpit in a church. A government official may say whatever he or she likes using whatever language he or she likes when they are speaking OUTSIDE their formal conduct of office. They can stand on the Boston Common and preach hellfire and damnation all day Saturday if they like, and it’s fine by me. When that same elected representative speaks from said rostrum, they speak as my elected representative.
In addition to the First Amendment rights of free speech we all share, I and every non-believer have equally important rights provided by the Establishment Clause. An elected official using the powers of his or her effort to enshrine his or her religious beliefs as law, especially while using religious language like “sin”, is violating my Establishment Clause rights.
Suppose an elected representative or governor stood at the rostrum and said — in his or her formal capacity as an elected official — “Niggers are a scourge on this Commonwealth and it’s time we got rid of them, using any and all means at our disposal”. Would you make the same free-speech argument about those words that clearly violate our anti-discrimination laws?
It isn’t a question of whether I find positions reprehensible. Our Constitution prohibits the establishment of religion. I’m not even arguing that an official can or should be charged with any crime.
I’m saying that I find such speech, when made during the formal exercise of public office, offensive. I have a right to live in a society free of a state-sponsored religion.
scott12mass says
I wish they had given us freedom from religion not freedom of religion.
Christopher says
…you have the same right to stand up and say your faith does not consider them a sin.
Christopher says
…shows that it is NOT superstitious, which it appears you automatically equate with faith and if so I cannot more strongly disagree. Because as you point out there is such a thing as “faith-based” climate denial that is all the MORE reason for progressive faiths to push back and offer prophetic witness in the other direction. To be fair though, there are plenty of the more evangelical sentiment who do in fact believe that their faith calls them to be good stewards of God’s Creation.
We neither can, nor IMO should, suppress religious voices and motivation entirely. If faith is what brings people to our side I’m all for it. If society actually conducted itself according to the tenets of Jesus’s teachings or even OT prophets, we’d be in much better shape, but we’d have to be better at distinguishing between that and the narrow-minded justifications of power that some abuse scripture for.
SomervilleTom says
I don’t have a problem with prayer. I don’t think teachers and faculty should pray aloud in school during school hours in the presence of students.
I don’t have problem with religious voices and motivation. As I’ve written upthread, I think statements of religious belief belong in places of worship, not the Oval Office.
I see no reason, other than superstition, to claim the inerrancy of one edition of one text (or, in some of the more humorous examples, ALL editions of one text even when they conflict with each other). Call it “faith” if you like, but it’s still superstition.
In my view, the answer to “faith-based climate denial” is to get faith OUT of the equation. I suggest that the outcome of your approach will be public officials exchanging proof-texts in a “duel”.
The science of climate change is real and compelling. The moral implications are apparent, and don’t require ordination or sanctification to be persuasive.
Christopher says
…but then I don’t believe in inerrancy of the Biblical text either. At least to me superstition means believing tomorrow is an unlucky date just ’cause. Faith is so much greater involving a worldview and morality to guide your actions, especially interactions with others. Nor do I see any of these voices calling for a literal reading of the scriptures. Context matters all around. You are not going to be very persuasive with a large swath of the country if you try to completely exclude faith from the equation. Sometimes you have to meet people where they are.
kirth says
You may rest assured that persons not raised in religious households or societies, and people who have chosen to put aside such upbringing, do believe your faith is superstition. That they are for the most part too polite or too reluctant to get into a pointless discussion about it to tell you that it’s superstition does not constitute an endorsement. What you call “prophetic witness,” many of us see as mumbo-jumbo. Religious belief is not a prerequisite for having a morality, BTW. And sometimes, humoring people’s delusions is not the most productive approach to addressing existential threats. Pointing out the complete lack of objective evidence supporting “faith-based” beliefs about climate change is not “suppressing religious voices.” It is attempting to remove extraneous and irrelevant noise from what should be a serious and focused discussion of a grave issue.
jconway says
We are talking about faith leaders acknowledging climate change as a morally urgent issue that lawmakers should address, nobody is defending faith based climate denial.
Secondly, MLK was a prophetic witness and a martyr, I would challenge anyone here to argue otherwise. Even if you aren’t religious, he was a prophet for his cause, his cause was morally righteous, racism is the original sin of America, and he gave up his life fighting for that cause. Predicting his death it in his speech where he knew he would not make it but could see the mountaintop. We really want that kind of morally urgent language excised from our public discourse?
I guess we can call up Steinbeck and Julia Ward Howe and tell them their grapes of wrath have no place here. Or tell Lincoln, our most secular president in terms of his personal faith and lack of church membership, but whose speeches and writings have a very biblical use of parables, syllogisms, parallelism, and in many cases direct allusions to scripture. Feel free to re-read it, and imagine it without the references to sin, God, wrath, and you will see it stripped of all of it’s rhetorical power.
‘Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”‘
Reagan (really Peggy Noonan) and Bobby Kennedy show us that there are approaches that do not rely on scripture, but invoke poets, both modern and ancient, to elevate their prose. But slavery is our nations original sin, and you will pardon me if I continue to view it as a sinful and immoral activity and that Lincoln was right to call it such.
fredrichlariccia says
right over the Green Monsta !
Lincoln’s quote from his second Inaugural Address is one of my favorites and was the closing scene of Spielberg’s LINCOLN based on Concord’s favorite daughter Doris Kearns Goodwin’s TEAM OF RIVALS.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
SomervilleTom says
I did not equate ALL faith with superstition. I, too, have faith. In my case, my faith requires the ABSENCE of an invisible agent who has emotions, responds to supplications, and manipulates the physical and tangible reality around us. Such an agent disrupts and destroys the worldview that I experience all around me. The combination of that disruptive effect, the impossibility of proving the agent’s existence, and the striking similarity with humans all around me persuade me that such an agent is a creation of humanity, rather than the other way around.
I therefore do not assert that your faith is superstitious. I instead offered an example of faith that, in my view, IS superstitious.
There is strong anthropological evidence, derived from observation and comparison of the rich variety of religions around the world, that morality and worldview shapes faith, rather than vice-versa. Humans tend to embrace religious beliefs that are consistent with their morality and worldview.
I do not assert that an agent such as I described above does NOT exist. I instead find (like Laplace) that I have no need for such an agent. Further, I find that the belief in such an agent tends to interfere with, rather than encourage, the joy, inspiration, and celebration that emerges from physical and tangible reality around us.
I see how the fundamental laws of mathematics produce unpredictable variety in the outcomes of simple equations. I see how those laws, combined with equally fundamental laws of physics and chemistry, result in self-organizing containers of chemicals in an enclosed volume of fluid. I see how those self-organizing containers form auto-catalytic reactions, and I see how those auto-catalytic reactions result in the phenomena we call “life”. I see how, over the span of hundreds of millions of years, that process results in the rich diversity of life that surrounds us.
I saw how all that manifested itself in the astonishing moment when a dark purple lump of flesh that was just expelled from a woman’s vagina expanded, turned bright pink, and became a new-born baby before my very eyes. I saw that five times, as each of my five children were born.
THAT is a miracle, that I witnessed five times. No “god” was required.
jconway says
And why it’s so hard to be a religious leftist these days, precisely since those in the religious right consider us as apostates and those on the secular left insist we leave our faith at the church door. I have nothing against secular humanism.
I do strongly feel we have been making a material and empirical argument regarding climate change that has been largely falling on deaf ears. It’s an increasingly secular country, I’ll give you that, but religion still plays an important role in the lives of the majority of Americans and having faith leaders assert that their faith compels them to act on the empirical evidence that climate change is a dire, apocalyptic threat (and it is!) is a game changer. Francis putting the weight of the church, which like or or not, has a billion adherents, towards action to halt climate change is a game changer.
If LeBron wanted to join the Celtics I’d welcome him with open arms! I don’t see why you are refusing an alliance with groups that wield immense political clout and power, just because on existential and sexual issues they (may) play for a different team. I for one am very happy to see a growing number of religious people recognize that this is a real threat to human existence, not homosexuality.
SomervilleTom says
In my view, the church and the offices of government are two distinct areas that we do and should treat differently. There is a whole lot more outside those two well-defined areas.
If you were elected as, say, an Alderman in Somerville, I would expect you to limit your use of explicitly religious language while speaking in your official role during the conduct of your office. For example, if you were chairing a meeting whose purpose was to propose regulations about gambling in Somerville, I would be profoundly uncomfortable if you or anyone else said something along the lines of “I am a Christian, I believe that gambling is a sin, and I therefore believe we should not allow ANY gambling to take place in this town”. You know that I am a strong opponent of legalized gambling. Still, in my view it is inappropriate to cite your religious beliefs as a reason to support or oppose particular legislation.
In a similar vein, I was active in Episcopal parish leadership for many years. I served on the vestry of two different parishes for extended periods. I often advocated for our clergy to openly oppose, for example, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and government policies of torture and war crimes. I also joined the vestry consensus that we should NOT take a position, from the pulpit, on any specific candidate or ballot question.
In my view, the firm separation of church and state is one of the huge reasons for America’s greatness. I believe that it is not accidental that our influence in world affairs has dimmed as we have weakened that separation. I cite the never-ending war in the Middle East as a necessary and predictable consequence when nations do not even attempt that separation.
I, too, welcome the change in direction of the new Pope. I encourage you to draw on your faith to persuade voters — outside the hearing room.
jconway says
I suspect I am still stricter than you are, but it sounds like you are ok with what Charley described in the OP. Faith leaders using their moral pulpit to ask their elected political leaders to make policy changes that protect us from climate change, that passes muster. It would be an elected official quoting Scripture to justify it, that wouldn’t pass muster? Is this correct?
I obviously have a selection bias in how I respond to Scripture in public speeches, but I think it can be quite profound, as when President Obama obliquely referred Exodus when he recalled to ‘you were a stranger once’ in his immigration speech in the East Room. Or Sen. Warren discussing the Great Commission in her moving remarks at the 2012 DNC Convention. I think when we stick to universal themes, like those found in the Beatitudes and calls to love others more than we love ourselves, that it is appropriate.
Where it can veer on the inappropriate is when specifically Christian aspects of Scripture are invoked in specifically Christian ways. I know the widow of the non-practicing Hindu astronaut was perturbed that the funeral ceremonies were largely Christian and that President Bush referred specifically to themes of Judeo-Christian salvation (Isaiah 40, he who brings out the starry hosts calls them one by one, name by name) that are arguably not universal. I find that moving, but were I not a Christian, I am not sure if I would find it appropriate.
A good discussion, I for one am glad Charley mentioned this welcome news, and I hope all our lawmakers act on this morally urgent issue since it is a question of survival, not just of faith.
SomervilleTom says
Specifically, your first paragraph correctly reflects my feelings about what does and does not “pass muster” for me.
Christopher says
After all, Deval Patrick did exactly that to justify his offer to take in refugee children from Central America. There should be other reasons and such politicians would be well advised to include those reasons when discussing with others who may not share their faith. However, an elected official using religious language even in his official capacity on public time and property neither establishes religion nor prohibits free exercise in the way understood by the Bill of Rights generation.
fredrichlariccia says
that some religions no longer view me as a threat to human existence. 🙂
As a fallen Catholic I am proud to say many of my best friends are devout Catholics and I love them all dearly. As for Pope Francis the Environmentalist — I still weep for joy whenever I think of that man. For me, he is a living saint — the reincarnation of my beloved St. Francis of Assisi — whose Prayer I keep with me always :
Lord, make me the instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive —
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
What a wonderful prayer. The world would be a more humane place to live if we all lived by these simple principles.
Fred Rich LaRiccia