Rhetoric & Religion (3/90)

Returning to the church my parents have attended since we moved to Texas, almost 20 years ago, is an interesting experience. The congregation has changed since I was last involved four years ago. The people I know have grown older, their lives have changed. So many of the families there I don't know, strangers. Today, the church 'honored the graduates'. So I put a picture on a table and stood on the stage while everyone clapped. Nice, but I feel extremely guilty, because some of the cards left on my table are from people I don't know.

Sitting through the services always make me wonder about religion as an institution and how it operates. I know that they believe that rhetoric has the power to influence people. You hear it when they discuss politics, violent tv, or the outside culture in general. However, scratch similar examinations of the sermon, I somehow felt disloyal. 

When we were discussing gender and the issues that complicate it last semester, Dr. P explicitly stated that she was not questioning the student's belief systems. However, there were certain assumptions behind each belief and she felt it was important (as do I) to acknowledge those assumptions and understand how they operate to reinforce our beliefs. 

This morning I was stretching this awareness. Not only are there assumptions behind a belief but holding a belief produces certain actions. My thoughts about the specifics need a little more work before the make it here, but I'll work on that and post them soon. 

It's your mother; drunk or sober (2/90)

My parent's subscribe to Glenn Beck, watch Fox news, and every time we hop in the car, one of the conservative talk show hosts is on. Thus far, I've done a fantastic job of ignoring all of it, but I think that will work no more. I've been home for a week and have heard some things that make me angry (I'm sorry, did you really just claim that a homosexual family privileges the adults more than a heterosexual?), and annoyed, (Do you have to say socialism every other word?), and others that have made me think. 

This is too large for this post, but one issue I've been working over is morality without religion. A few months ago, I heard a lecture about the U.S. law system and how it's based on a Christian morality. This gentleman's argument was that if you take religion out of the law system (as law schools are doing today), then you have no moral foundation for the law. I don't think this is true, but I have to do a little more research and thought into the issue. 

Today, one of those talk shows was discussing Mexico's president's criticisms of the Arizona immigration law and American pundits who agreed. This became a discussion of loyalty. Their view was that it's your country, right or wrong, and you shouldn't be agreeing with foreign presidents. She's still your mother- drunk or sober, they say. Yet the conversation blurred the lines between agreeing with the criticisms and agreeing with the Mexican president. If we believe something are we to ignore those views when someone else, an outsider, states them in a public forum? If the Pastor said your drunk mother needed help, would you disagree with him? I don't know the comments that preceded this show and can't even remember who's show it was. The comments could have been extremely anti-American and perhaps the comments agreed with the President, simply because he was an 'outsider'; however, this situation can't be reduced to loyalty. Maintaining and voicing a critical thought process is not disloyal.

One out of Ninety

After a hectic weekend of hugs and congratulations, my parents house has emptied. Soon, my dad flies back to his overseas job leaving just my mom, my sisters, and I. The free time stretching before me is both refreshing and frightening. One of the many reasons I enjoyed school was that ideas were thrown at you from every direction and you found connections in the most likely places. At first, I thought I would just have to do without that for a few months. I realize now that it's been so long since I've had a lot of time to read that I'd forgotten that the same web of ideas is simply waiting in books, waiting for me to discover them. God, I sound like a poster in an elementary school library.  

I like goals. So, this summer. No matter what happens, I have a goal to achieve. 5 posts a week. 14 weeks. 90 posts for the summer. Starting today.