Why Not Obama?

In talking with good friends who plan to vote for McCain, I am still confused as to what people think is so dangerous about Obama. It's a sincere question, rooted in the fact that many of the concerns raised by Obama's opponents seem either to be factually misleading, or their outcomes would actually be closer to what conservatives want (fewer abortions, stronger families, a healthy economy, less dead soldiers) than the rhetoric allows.

So can someone please explain to me why anyone who wants to see poor people taken care of,

a health care system that isn't based on hospital owners and insurance companies getting rich off the back of other people's suffering,

a foreign policy implemented that learns the lesson of every other successful conflict resolution process in history and decides to pursue diplomacy rather than revenge or belligerence because a) it often works and b) it's the morally right thing to do (and will mean, beyond a shadow of doubt, that fewer people will have been killed at the end of his Presidency than if his opponent is elected),

a sexual education and health promotion strategy that reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies and therefore abortions rather than the absurd abstinence programmes heralded by the Bush adminstration which all evidence suggests actually lead to higher instances of STIs,

a tax regime that favours the less well off rather than those who could live in luxurious indulgence for the rest of their lives even if 90% of their income was used by the government to build houses for homeless people,

a morally just policy adopted regarding the consensual partnerships in which people choose to live - allowing same sex couples to more easily own property together, to visit each other when they're dying, and to walk the streets safely in public (without negatively affecting 'the American family' - UK civil partnership legislation for same sex couples has had no discernible effect on the straight divorce rate; indeed, the state formalising same sex relationships may actually contribute to the stable family unit),

a redemption of the office of President, which for the past eight years has been occupied by a man utterly unqualified in temperament, intelligence, judgement or moral discernment to lead, and for the previous eight by a more intelligent man who couldn't keep his erotic urges under control and lied to the country about it (as well as employing the high altitude bomb on at least one occasion that cannot be justified under any circumstances),

and a restoration of the moral and cultural and philosophical and frankly spiritual standing of the US in the eyes of the rest of the world through having a guy in the White House that not only by the obvious contrast shown by the colour of his skin, but the content of his character has revealed himself to be capable of both uniting the country and inspiring the respect of the world,

can anyone explain to me why voting for Obama is not one of the most vital, life-affirming, prophetic, and simply good things you could ever do?

PS: And I know he's not perfect. But he knows it too. And that's probably part of the point of why he represents something amazing.

PPS: And I also know that this could look like a jibe at sincerely skeptical people - I don't mean it that way at all - but I do mean the questions with sincerity.

Some Thoughts on 'Religulous'


Bill Maher is that rare thing: a media figure unafraid to say what he really thinks. When he intervened in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, suggesting that it’s better to deal intelligently with terrorism than to indulge in absurdist name-calling, many people, including me, supported him. We were dismayed by the cancellation of ‘Politically Incorrect’ – which had provided one of the few opportunities for serious sustained political discussion on television. In recent years he returned to the small screen with ‘Real Time’ on HBO, and the lack of censorship on cable channels has allowed him the run of himself, which is a blessing, because there’s no unreasonable restriction on what can be said. Maher’s concern for calling politicians to account, and allowing oxygen to maverick points of view is a public service; the fact that he does it with such brilliant humor makes the show uniquely entertaining. His new film ‘Religulous’ is a paradox, however – it is both an amusing deflation of religious pomposity, and an infuriating attack on faith that sadly lacks intellectual rigor.

We follow Maher on a sporadic trip around the US, the Middle East, and the UK, visiting sincere spiritual advocates ranging from the working class members of a truck-stop church in North Carolina, a violence-endorsing Muslim rapper in London, and the actor who plays Jesus at a Holy Land theme park. He asks academic theology questions and mocks the respondents for offering only platitudes; these scenes are intercut with footage of him making more fun of the unsuspecting target in a post-interview wrap-up chuckle with his director Larry Charles. The effect is rather like watching the string section of an orchestra standing in a circle and pointing with disdain at a homeless guy playing a three-stringed fiddle. It’s not pleasant; and it doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know: that there are some crazy people in the world. By the same token, of course, there are plenty of intelligent spiritual believers; just as there are plenty of unpleasant atheists. Maher’s film unfortunately does not engage with people whose faith has advanced obvious good in the world, nor those who approach God on the basis that God is at least as smart as we are and that we can talk about the Divine in terms that would not shame an evolutionary biologist.

Maher himself appears to be an intelligent guy – but his film risks being intellectually dishonest. If he is, as is claimed, genuinely interested in finding out why people believe what they believe, then why didn’t he interview any of the hundreds of well known spiritual leaders who bring intelligence, wit, and grace to their conversation; nor any whose faith has propelled them into acts of mercy and kindness? It’s not as if they’re hard to find: Let’s start with Archbishop Tutu, Dr Rowan Williams, and other Christian leaders in international peace processes to name only the most obvious; add to these the invisibility of perhaps more culturally relevant figures such as Andrew Sullivan, Anne Lamott, even Maher’s own friend Arianna Huffington, or any number of the folk who blog about progressive faith, and the failings of ‘Religulous’ become even more obvious. The fact that he ignores these people, combines with the overheated monologue that closes the film, with Maher’s polemic about religion edited against footage of bombs, angry preachers, and end-of-the-world scenarios (including some from my own home of Belfast, in which an IRA funeral is misappropriated to illustrate his point; while the conflict in and about Northern Ireland has some historic religious elements, IRA members would certainly disavow any suggestion that their fight was faith-based). It feels like Maher wrote this monologue before he went out on his journey; in which case the documentary is not an intelligent exploration of a vital issue, but a polemic based on cynical preconceptions.

Bill Maher has important questions to ask: why do some religious people do such bad things?; what is the relationship between faith and reason?; what should be the role of spirituality in politics?; is religion inherently dangerous? The problem with ‘Religulous’ is that he doesn’t ask these questions of people who can answer intelligently, nor does he allow for the possibility that one does not have to be an expert in something to be a fan.

I’d add a few questions of my own: why do the levels of theological literacy in public articulations of Christianity seem so pathetically low?; why do so many religious believers seem unable to articulate why they believe what they believe?; And how is it possible for a film that deals in part ostensibly with the role of Christianity in public life in the US not to even mention the greatest public advocate of a role for faith in the history of this country, Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr?

However…I have to pause here, for as I re-read this article before submitting it for publication I realize that I may have fallen into an ancient trap, and in the process perhaps have simply reinforced Maher’s legitimate concerns. ‘First take the plank out of your own eye before figuring out what to do with the speck in someone else’s’ were the paraphrased words of another well known mystic, who doesn’t get as much attention in ‘Religulous’ as one might expect. There may well be a pretty big plank in my eye – for the truth is that one of the reasons Maher may feel emboldened to make his angry case is that people of faith have so often failed to make theirs. To make ours. To articulate a spirituality that is earthed in an appreciation of beauty, love of neighbor, and a humble, wide-eyed (but not empty-headed) wonder at the notion that Someone far greater than any of us may just be more present than we realize. If Christians can be made so easily to look boring, it is partly because we have not articulated a better story. If Christians are held in low regard because we are seen to be primarily concerned with issues of private morality and Puritanical codes, it is partly because we have not paid enough attention to reason and human experience as guides to interpreting our faith. If, in short, it is easy to portray Christians as stupid, spineless and dangerous, it is partly because we have failed to be loving, peaceable and brave.

A Call + Response to end Modern Slavery


Last week two films were released that present propagandized visions of the United States. Bill Maher’s Religulous suggests that religion is poison and its adherents are crazy; the spoof An American Carol wants to say that questioning President Bush is itself an act of treason and critiques of the war in Iraq deserve no attention because they are inherently spineless. Both films are intellectually disingenuous and add little positivity to the current national debate. So it’s something of a relief to say that another piece of cinematic propaganda goes on a national tour of movie theatres this weekend, one whose moral compass is something of an antidote to the arrogance and victim mentality of An American Carol and Religulous in the form of a shocking expose of the horror of modern slavery: human trafficking. In Justin Dillon’s film Call and Response, the stories of the 27 million people currently in labor bondage are illustrated with graphic hidden camera footage and intercut with interviews and musical performances by the likes of Moby, Natasha Bedingfield, and Emmanuel Jal.

It’s a powerful film, in which interactions with the victims of trafficking speak for themselves. Talking heads such as Nicholas Kristof, former U.N. Ambassador John Miller, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, and actor Ashley Judd make the case that there are more people in slavery today than at the time of the abolition movement and outline the relationship between the arms and drug trade and the buying and selling of people. Human trafficking, bonding labor, and sexual slavery are vastly profitable businesses, and so the question of supply and demand is obvious. And you don’t need to look far for this horror, for even people who serve in your favorite restaurants may be subject to the oppression of not being able to make their own choices.

Everyone who sees this film will have their own most striking moment –- for me, when a former child prostitute says she was forced to service 1,000 men a year for six years, but can’t add up the total as she has never been to school, I had to pause watching for a while to absorb the extraordinary sadness of that statement. I was also shocked by the statistics. For example, the film claims that 1 million people are trafficked through the United States every year, but there have been only 50 related criminal convictions in the past decade.

These stories are so beyond our worst imaginings that this film provides nothing less than a prophetic community service: It exposes an unpalatable truth and cries out against injustice.

Important questions are alluded to, and hopefully the film will inspire people to find their own answers:

What are the economic roots of violence?

What is the relationship between recreational drug use and human trafficking?

What does it mean when we value products that may have been produced under oppressive conditions solely on the basis of their price?

How do we restore human decency in a world where even the Christian church is sometimes complicit in nurturing identities of shame and humiliation (which themselves contribute to the context where human trafficking can occur)?

How can the mid-level officials (police officers, hotel and restaurant managers, and others) who serve as intermediaries with those who use sex slaves be held accountable?

And, as Dr. Cornel West asks, “How do you convince a folk that are prone toward paralysis to keep on moving?”

The film does not prescribe particular forms of action, instead inviting the audience to ‘open source’ activism through dialoguing with others on its Web site and supporting organizations that are working to free slaves and end human trafficking. Perhaps the most important philosophical statement in the film is the suggestion that nostalgia for freedom movements of the past will get us nowhere. Only when people of passion and action get more committed to ending modern slavery than the slave owners are to perpetuating it will there be hope that a new abolition movement can succeed.

Dr. West also says that the only thing that slaves have is their voice and their bodies. Call and Response is a powerful attempt at representing the power and dignity in the words and faces of the oppressed. It deserves attention.

Call and Response will be released this Friday, with screenings organized across the U.S. For a list of screenings, see www.callandresponse.com.

Duck

I knew a guy at high school called Paul, but for some reason everybody called him ‘Duck’. It was one of those nicknames whose genesis was lost in the mists of whatever else it is you spend your teenage years doing. I remember going to see ‘Dead Poet’s Society’ (an extremely well-crafted but morally hollow film, to my mind) in 1989 at East Belfast’s Strand Cinema, which Van Morrison is photographed beside for the inlay cover art of ‘The Healing Game’ album, and where I saw more of the formative films of my 15th/16th/and 17th years than anywhere else. Duck came into the theatre just as the audience was almost fully seated, and so we called out to him: ‘DUCK!’ A few dozen people did.

That serves merely as a circuitous way into talking a little about a film I saw last night, called ‘Duck’, and for good reason. It’s about a man and a duck. The man is a widower, and earlier lost his son. The movie’s version of the US is a soulless place in which every tree is being colonised by shopping malls, and where psychiatrists mistake innocence for mental illness. The man, played by Philip Baker Hall, an actor who can genuinely be called ‘great’, not least because I usually feel exhilarated any time I see him, wanders around accompanied by the eponymous creature, a gorgeous goose, looking for the ocean. The movie doesn’t really hold together - it’s a fable whose critique of the breakdown of community is not exactly subtle or nuanced; but it’s absolutely worth watching for the central performance. Hall is so beguiling and sympathetic that he manages to invest the duck itself with a personality. It is easy to buy into their relationship, and not for a second - until after the film was over - did I think about the central absurdity and slightness of this film.