80 – What’s a Human Life Worth?

Author: Dinah Livingstone. Published December 2006 in issue 80 of Sofia.

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Contents

Articles
Reviews
Poetry

Editorial

Paul Overend explores the meaning of worship and worth. He says the term ‘worship’ makes him uncomfortable because it still has connotations of feudal homage and links with a hierarchical social order, legitimised by God, ‘the Most High’ at the top. He would prefer to attend to ‘something actually worthy of my concern, such as places of neglect, disaster, abuse’, and thinks ‘worship as a term might be retained for the recognition of the worth of other human beings, of other species, of the environment, of our selves’.

Don Cupitt’s article argues that ‘the classic distinction between two worlds, Heaven and Earth, the Invisible and the Visible, the Spiritual and the Material, the supernatural and the natural, is coming to an end. It is a strong plea for the worth of ‘this world, the present moment, ordinary language and everyday life.’ Michael Morton’s article Pastoral looks at how the scriptural metaphor of sheep and shepherd has been claimed by two opposing tendencies in Christianity – the ‘marginalised’ and the ‘authoritarian’. In St John, he says, ‘the image of the sheepfold and shepherd may well allude to a community on the margins’. The Gospel was first and foremost ‘good news for the poor’ – the anawim, ‘the lost and forgotten ones’, as in the Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are the poor, blessed are the dispossessed...’ However, Morton says, ‘within 170 years a three-rank hierarchy developed and gave the church a very different kind of “pastoral” governance.’ Among their insignia of office bishops have stylised shepherds’ crooks, sometimes made of ivory, silver or gold.

This issue opens with the Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal’s Message to Berlin, which he sent to the PEN Writers’ Congress that took place in Berlin in May 2006 on the theme of ‘Writing in a World without Peace’. He was unable to attend himself (he is now over eighty years old), so he was invited to send a Message.

As a younger man, Cardenal joined the Trappist Monastery of Gethsemani, Kentucky, where his novice master was Thomas Merton. After leaving the Monastery, he was ordained Catholic priest in 1965 and founded a peasant community on the Solentiname Islands on Lake Nicaragua. (In his Memoirs, Cardenal says that Merton wanted to join the Solentiname Community but his Order would not give him permission.) The Community produced remarkable primitive paintings (one is on the front cover), poetry, and took part in the overthrow of the Nicaraguan dictator Somoza.

Cardenal is one of the most famous poets in Latin America. After the triumph of the Revolution in 1979, he became Minister of Culture. With the watchword ‘The triumph of the Revolution is the triumph of poetry’ his ministry immediately began setting up poetry workshops all over the country and published a magazine Poesía Libre on rough brown paper bound with string, which was available very cheaply in outlets like supermarkets.

Nicaragua is famous for its poets and the magazine published well-known names, translations from many countries and had a section of poems from the workshops. (Poetry is also ‘incarnate word’.) Cardenal was one of three Catholic priests in the Sandinista government – his brother Fernando Cardenal SJ was Minister of Education (and led the famously successful literacy campaign in 1980) and Miguel D’Escoto SJ was Foreign Minister. All three were suspended from saying Mass by the Pope.

Ernesto’s Message to Berlin denounces President Bush as the new Hitler: ‘Just as there was a time when Hitler was the cause of wars, now the cause of wars is Bush.’ He agrees with the German writer Günter Grass that ‘terrorism can only by fought with more economic justice’. He quotes Psalm 85: ‘Justice and Peace have kissed each other,’ and says: ‘That is because justice and peace go together. There is no justice without peace or peace without justice.’ Two other Beatitudes are: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice and blessed are the peacemakers.

The recently published study in The Lancet estimates that 1 in 40 Iraqis have been killed since the invasion in 2003 – more than 650,000 people. That is a far higher civilian death rate than under the tyrant Saddam Hussein. The figure was defended by Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, in an article in The Guardian on October 12th 2006, which concludes: ‘We are one human family. Let’s act like it.’ The English words:worth,worthy and worship are all related,and this issue asks what a human life is worth – how do we value our own life on Earth and the lives of others. editorial This sounds the same note as Ernesto Cardenal: ‘Our weapon against war is humanism, since our country is Humanity.’ The Catholic priests in the Sandinista government worked harmoniously with non-religious colleagues who proposed (in the words of Interior Minister Tomás Borge) ‘a sane and kindly humanism that sees the liberation of humanity as the chief object of culture’. As a Catholic priest, Cardenal believes human life is holy because it was created by God and because the Word became flesh in a human body. Inspired by liberation theology, his God is a humanist God.

Other Christians, in Latin America and elsewhere, seem to worship a very different God – the God of the conquistadors, of the rich and powerful, the God who told Bush to invade Iraq. We in SoF may regard both Gods as human creations, but we still need to exercise discernment and decide which we prefer, who we can work with.

This issue also carries a review of an Introduction to Radical Theology. The term ‘radical’ here refers to philosophical radicalism. Again, not all forms of radical theology are humanist: some concentrate so exclusively on ‘ideas’ or ‘language’ that they ignore the fact that we are mortal bodies; some are so privatised or individualistic that they ignore the social body, the human species. Discernment is equally necessary with regard to those who hold that gods ‘reside in the human breast’.

Adisembodied theology can ignore justice; justice is concerned with habeas corpus. Cardenal believes human bodies are holy because the divine Word became flesh. Others share his humanism but do not think it needs a supernatural guarantee. We may read the Christ epic of incarnation, passion, resurrection and the final coming of the ‘reign’ of justice and peace on Earth as a story of the ‘emptying’ of the divine into the human, of naturalistic humanism as the outcome, the fulfilment of a supernatural story. At least, even if we do not take its supernatural elements literally, the Christ epic can still be seen as (and inspire) a humanist project. Or not.

It is up to us whether we recognise ‘the worth of other human beings’, whether we value ‘this world and everyday life’ (for everybody, not just ourselves, not just maintaining our own garden), whether we try, asAmnesty puts it, to protect the human, whether we want ‘good news for the poor’, the anawim, the lost and forgotten ones, whether, as Cardenal urges at the end of his Message to Berlin, we defend peace and justice, and defend human bodies.

Dear Editor, I especially appreciated your printing in Sofia 79 the hymn The Larger View by John Andrew Story and telling us that it was sung at the closing of the 2006 SoF Conference. I am curious as to what hymn tune was used. Readers who enjoy hymns would probably like to know. The metre is 8.7.8.7. I think of six well known tunes with this meter: Hyfrydol, Hymn to Joy, Love Divine, Nettleton, Ton-Y Botel, and What a Friend.

Yours sincerely, Hershey Julien 413 James Road, Palo Alto, CA 94306 USA If we can clear the permission, we’ll print the music of this tune next time. Ed.

— Hershey Julien, Palo Alto, CA 94306 USA

Having just proof-read this letter, I couldn’t resist replying, because the delightful tune also interested me. Identified on our song-sheet only as ‘Old Russian Melody’ it appeared to be the theme from Berlioz’s popular overture to his still-born opera Les FrancsJuges. These mediaeval Judges presided over a secret tribunal in Westphalia to try cases of alleged witchcraft and heresy – they were empowered to inflict only one penalty: death. So far, so appropriate!

The Berlioz overture gained some exposure in the sixties as the signature tune of the BBC’s disturbingly probing interview programme Face to Face, where the ‘victim’s’ face was seen, but not that of the interviewer, John Freeman. Descending from the AGM platform, however, the retiring Chair could be heard singing a schmaltzy pop version from The Seekers in the same decade – The Carnival is Over. It was, but we’d had a good sing.

— None

Alison McRobb Cambridge (England) Israel, Lebanon and Jewish Identity Dear Editor, May I register my own horror at the one-sidedness of your remarks in Mayday Notes (September 2006) on the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah? Having been on the political left all my life, I am well used to seeing Israel presented as the arch- and heartless aggressor in relation to her neighbours. This has been so much a ‘doctrine felt as fact’ in such circles that I have myself for too long accepted it without critical enquiry.

Such incredibly vitriolic attacks as yours have however caused me to look more closely at recent events and come to my own conclusions as to the causes of this latest chapter in the hostilities. Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. Occupation was no longer the issue. Israel’s right to oppose aggression on its territory clearly was. Yet Hezbollah used the subsequent years of relative calm on the border to reinforce its presence in southern Lebanon and to obtain thousands of longer-range and more dangerous missiles from Iran and Syria.

The capture of Israeli soldiers was described by Hamas and Hezbollah as legitimate military operations. That is how the war began. Lebanese towns and villages, some heavily populated by civilians, were used by Hezbollah to launch hundreds of deadly rockets at northern Israeli towns. No warnings were given and civilian areas in Israel were specifically targeted. By contrast, Israeli counterattacks were preceded by warnings to local populations and published advice to stay off the road in named locations. A state impervious to the suffering of civilians doesn’t warn them in advance of attacks in the area or advise them to stay off the roads in specific locations. Attacks by Israel on Lebanon’s infrastructure, however regrettable, must be seen in the light of Hezbollah’s use of that same infrastructure to re-supply. As for the ‘slaughter’ of Lebanese civilians, if this really had been Israel’s aim, the death toll would have been many times what it was. The uncomfortable truth has, I think, been summed up in the judgement that if Israel had a total monopoly on weapons in the Middle East, the result would be peace; if Hezbollah and its sponsors had the monopoly, the result would be genocide.

— Alison McRobb, Cambridge (England)

Yours sincerely, David Williams 153 Crompton Way, Bolton, Lancashire BL2 2SQ Tel: 01204 373353 goodfornowt@aol.com Dear Editor, I would like to comment on two points raised in Sofia 79: 1. Don Cupitt’s is an important and inspiring article but it contains one factual error. The eruv is not a way of ‘creating purely Jewish districts’. There is, for example, an eruv in North West London within whose boundaries, Christians, Muslims and all kinds of people live, in addition to many Jews. The eruv is intended to make life easier for the minority of Jews letters who are strictly religious. Legal fiction is an important modality of Jewish law (Halakha). A moderating spirit is sometimes invented in order to temper the letter of an exacting law. (Incidentally, I would love to know if there is an equivalent of these legal fictions in Sharia law). The eruv is a classic example of a legal fiction. Provided there is permission from the local council, telegraph-like poles are installed to join up gaps in natural boundaries (e.g. a stream), and this enables devout Jews to argue from the Law that the area covered by the eruv is an extension of their own home. Thanks to this legal fiction, people can carry things and women can push prams etc on the Sabbath, which would otherwise be forbidden. Supporters of the eruv argue that orthodox or orthoprax Jews benefit and no one else suffers. The main objection to the North-West London eruv came from other Jews who felt that it created a symbolic ghetto or who felt that it would attract ‘high profile’ (i.e. visibly distinctive) Jews to areas where previously Jews who looked like their non-Jewish neighbours lived. I have written about this a bit in an article in London Magazine (October/November 2002) called ‘Everything is Prepared for the Feast’. But, to reiterate my first point, the eruv has nothing whatsoever to do with creating Jewish-only areas. 2. I was pleased to see that in your Mayday Notes you quoted a very important article from the best and most liberal Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz showing that not everyone in Israel supports the official line of the Israeli government, which broadly speaking aligns itself with the approach and attitude of the USA and the UK towards international conflicts. It is possible you will receive some letters complaining that you did not adopt a ‘balanced’ approach or that you have not understood what has been going on or that Gideon Levy represents nobody. Fear not, dear Editor.

Let me reassure you that a significant minority of Jews in the Diaspora and a smaller but also significant minority in Israel understand that other approaches are possible than Bush’s famous ‘war on terror’, as echoed by the Israeli Prime Minister on the eve of the war that ended with cluster bombs.

Somebody should write an article about the most dovish of all Israel’s Prime Minister, Moshe Sharett.

Who remembers him? Who has even heard of him?

How many people know that there was a possibility that Israel would join the famous Non-Aligned Movement back in the fifties? Finally, let me say that Jewish institutions in the UK Diaspora (the Board of Deputies, the Chief Rabbinate, the Jewish Chronicle etc) do not speak for all of us. Not all the individuals are Uncle Toms. They are entitled to their point of view.

But so are we. The prime responsibility of intellectuals, whether religious or not, is to think for ourselves and then ‘speak truth to power’, that proud Quaker injunction which was inspired by the Jewish prophets of old. As one of the greatest, Isaiah, said long ago: ‘For out of Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem ... They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.’ Anthony Rudolf London anthony.rudolf@virgin.net Is Christianity going anywhere?

— David Williams, Bolton, Lancashire BL2 2SQ

Dear Editor, Edition 69 of the SoF Magazine carried a review by Ronald Pearse of Lloyd Geering’s book Is Christianity Going Anywhere? This devastating critique of mainstream Christian thought over the centuries appealed to me strongly. Geering suggests that early understandings of incarnation were the realisation that qualities hitherto understood to be associated with the divine were now to be embodied in all humanity – not just confined to Jesus. ‘The traditional other-worldly Christ figure ... now belongs to a mythical world altogether foreign to us.’ Geering sees Christianity as living on in our secular world, which has been largely created by the insights and values of Christian teaching. He warns against cutting ourselves off from our cultural and spiritual roots.

Coming from a Unitarian background, where Christian theology about Jesus was once of prime importance, I thought it worthwhile to offer my own appreciation of the book to the Unitarian fortnightly newspaper The Inquirer. Interestingly, this review has already resulted in 25 copies of the book being sold to various Unitarians via Stephen Mitchell’s bookstall. The book seems likely to inspire some cutting-edge sermons. Meanwhile our Unitarian Fellowship in Chelmsford discussed the book at a recent meeting and nobody disagreed with its conclusions. If SoF can think big, continue to move away from traditional types of religion and network with other liberals/radicals of similar minds, we can together plan with confidence for a new type of future. Christianity may not be going anywhere, but that needn’t apply to us.

— Miles Howarth, Little Waltham, CHELMSFORD, Essex CM3 3NT

Yours sincerely Miles Howarth 98 The Street, Little Waltham, CHELMSFORD, Essex CM3 3NT Tel/fax: 01245 360457 Dear Editor, This letter is written by an ashamed American.

Republican Nazi America launched a war against the whole planet on September 11th 2001, with a Pentagon false flag ‘terrorist attack’ on its own cities; then took over Afghanistan and now continues to commit genocide in Iraq, while supporting and helping to plan the Israel attack on Lebanon. I am a member of the Sea of Faith, because I hoped it would deal with basic issues about religion; basic issues I do not see it even considering. 1. Religion and science are separate but equal partners in the search for essential truths. (Robert F.Kennedy Jr, Crimes against Nature (2004). 2. ‘Universe’ and ‘God’ are natural concepts, which change continuously, because the natural inward and outward world change continuously. They are not beings or natural entities. They are the human attempt to express that all that is, is cyclic and everlasting, but each entity has only one lifetime, disintegrates, is naturally re-cycled and re-emerges as a new, different, unique entity of the natural world. 3. Religion and Science are both based on the reality of the natural, universal, inward and outward world.

Religion studies it experientially and empirically; Science studies it objectively and experimentally. In Religion in the Making (1926), Alfred North Whitehead expressed the view that ‘religion will transform itself with the continual transformation of knowledge’. (both scientific and religious). I hope and pray he was correct.

Yours sincerely, Robert D.Ivey Jnr 923 NW 34th Avenue, Gainsville, Florida 32609 USA www.hrw.org JOIN SoF Network Are you dismayed by the growth of fundamentalism and its attendant violence in many religions, including the Christian, Muslim and Jewish religions? At the same time do you think that religious stories and traditions are an important part of our human treasury which we do not want to lose?

— Robert D. Ivey Jnr, Gainsville, Florida 32609 USA