Press Release: Religious Left Charges U.S. Drone Policy on Autopilot

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Brethren, Catholic, Drones, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Just War Theory, Mark Tooley, Nuns on a Bus, Nuns on the Bus, pacifism, Quakers, Religious Left, UCC, United Methodist, war, war & peace

(photo credit: washingtonpost.com)

May 31, 2013
Contact: Jeff Walton 202-682-4131

“The pacifist Religious Left is again denouncing drone strikes against terrorists without offering plausible alternatives.”
-IRD President Mark Tooley

Washington, DC—A letter to President Obama from United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Quaker, Brethren, and Christian Reformed officials, plus the head of “Nuns on the Bus,” is expressing “great concern” about drone “targeted killings” of “alleged” al Qaeda militants.

The groups want to repeal the post 9-11 “Authorization for the Use of Military Force” and instead pursue “police actions” that “extend protections consistent with principles of human and civil rights pertaining to the pursuit and apprehension of a criminal suspect, including fair trial in a court of law.”

A full version of the letter can be viewed by clicking here.

IRD President Mark Tooley commented:

“The pacifist Religious Left is again denouncing drone strikes against terrorists without offering plausible alternatives.

“These activists bemoan ‘remote, technical warfare,’ without admitting they, as literal or functional pacifists, oppose all warfare and force. Their appeal illustrates how some church officials, ignoring their own religious teachings about fallen humanity, want desperately to pretend that the world is intrinsically benign and just.

“These religious activists are interested in the ‘root causes of conflicts,’ which they surmise can be addressed by ‘restorative justice practices, and effective economic development programs.’ Their suggestion has merit if Islamist terrorists have legitimate grievances that can be redressed by rational recompense. But what if their mollification entails accommodation to Islamist rule and practice, including the suppression of civil liberties, which the activists profess to champion, and the suppression of non Islamists?

“The liberal Protestants’ letter seems to expect a level of perfection and power that not even the U.S. at its very best can possibly attain.

“Technology and modern scruples have made war and law enforcement more precise than ever before. But churches attuned to the limits of human capacity must understand that states, when defending the innocent from the murderous, must act boldly, stealthily, dangerously, and without guarantee of absolute success. Winston Churchill reputedly said: ‘The maxim ‘Nothing but perfection’ may be spelled ‘Paralysis.’’ High minded theorists may demand moral precision, but no government this side of heaven can guarantee it.”

www.TheIRD.org

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Nuns on a Boat Still Morally Adrift

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abortion, Addie Darling, Catholic, Contraception, health care, HHS, Institute on Religion and Democracy, IRD Blog, NETWORK, Nuns on a Bus, Sister Simone Campbell

Sister Simone Campbell is at it again!

By Addie Darling

Sister Simone is back, but this time, she’s traded the highway for waterways. Still, her message of flip-flopping on her adherence to the Magisterium and respect for bishops as well as her support of the pro-life cause stays the same.

On Monday, Sister Simone Campbell, Executive Director of the NETWORK lobby, spearhead of the “Nuns on a Bus” tour, and speaker at this August’s Democratic National Convention stepped onto the Staten Island Ferry to speak out against a local Congressman running for election, Michael Grimm, and his support of the Ryan Budget, which was passed by the House of Representatives.

Read more here.

Nuns, Methodists, a Budget, and a Bus

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Activism, budget, Catholic, Institute on Religion and Democracy, IRD Blog, Methodist, Nuns on a Bus, Roman Catholic

The nuns speak outside the UMC Church & Society Building (Photo Credit: gq.com)

By Julia Polese

The Nuns on the Bus tour ended in front of the United Methodist Church & Society Building here in DC on July 2^nd (See video here). Sister Simone Campbell gave an impassioned speech invoking Catholic Social Teaching in defense of their ideas about the federal budget and criticized certain Catholic politicians for violating the tenets of CST like solidarity and preferential option for the poor. She was thrilled to be there: “I have never felt more enriched being a Catholic sister than I do standing here with my sisters today.” This statement might not help her defend her lobbying organization, NETWORK, against the Vatican accusation that American women religious have focused more on politically liberal causes than the Church’s teaching on family or life issues. Sister Campbell has the life issue taken care of: “I really think what sisters do is hug the life into people, not out of people.”

Catholic Social Teaching itself has been an issue of contention in the budget battle for several months. Representative Paul Ryan invoked the principle of subsidiarity on behalf of his budget back in April, equating it with the conservative preference for federalism. When he came to speak at Georgetown University a few weeks later, 90 faculty signed a letter accusing Ryan of using Catholic Social Teaching for political gain when they claimed his budget had no sign of a preferential option for the poor. (Only one of these faculty members later signed a letter condemning HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ invitation to speak at Georgetown Public Policy Institute’s graduation a few months later.) Campbell has taken this contentious tone on the road, making a “Spirit-driven” journey across the country and “turning up the heat on Congress” in the name of “faith, family, and fairness.” NETWORK has found an ally in the United Methodist Church, which has used its Church & Society building to host prayer vigils and a “liturgy” for a “faithful budget” for the few weeks leading up to the bus’ return to Washington. “The vigils are an interreligious effort to raise the voice of peoples of faith on behalf of the poorest and most vulnerable among us,” said Jim Winkler, chief executive of the United Methodist General Board of Church & Society. The sponsors of the vigils said they were meant to “call on God to move in the hearts of policy makers to preserve robust assistance for people in poverty.”

Rod Dreher recently posted a comment from a reader of his blog at The American Conservative about the political aspirations of mainline Protestantism that hit the nail on the head: “it’s an attempt to outsource our moral indignation so we don’t have to consider that actual moral and religious problems afflicting our own communities.” This week, I read James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World, in which he discusses how Christians have sought to “make the world a better place” and “build the kingdom” in the late modern era. Among other critiques he makes of both the Christian Right and Christian Left’s attempts to change culture, the primary issue he confronts is the mythology of political activism’s ability to re-Christianize the broader American milieu. Instead, he puts forth a theology of “faithful presence”: Christians are called to be the image of God and representatives of Christ in their sphere of influence and wherever they are. While this may not suddenly change late modern culture more broadly, “faithful presence” is simply being salt and light, Jesus’ command for Christians living in the world.

Catholic Social Teaching is precisely for “faithful presence” in one’s own community: subsidiarity certainly is not embodied in a giant federal budget and neither can be true solidarity with the poor. Sr. Campbell’s shoehorning the “gospel” into a budget debate is only a reflection of the politicization of culture at large that only, like the commenter at Dreher’s blog said, “outsources our moral indignation” – moves our attention away from our own moral shortcomings in order to blame or look for respite from the state for our social ills. Catholic Social Teaching is well built for the nuns’ local community and not as much for budget formation in a late modern liberal democracy. To “hug life into people,” you have to be close to them.

What is “Poverty” in America?

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budget, Christian Stempert, Faithful Budget, Institute on Religion and Democracy, IRD Blog, morality, Nuns on a Bus, Poverty

by Christian M. Stempert

photo: This is what we think poverty looks like (credit: Google Images)

Earlier this week, the Catholic social justice group ‘Nuns on the Bus’ paid a visit to Rep. Paul Ryan’s home office in Janesville, Wisconsin.  The Catholic sisters pulled into town on the second day of their 15-day cross-country bus trip to promote the ‘Faithful Budget Campaign,’ which calls for a budget that “protects the common good, values every individual and lifts the burden on the poor.”

Part of the “Priorities for a Faithful Budget” document, which was submitted to Congress in March, calls for the federal “government’s continued partnership to combat poverty.”  And this sounds good.  Poverty isn’t something that we want to have in our community, nation, or even the world.  But what exactly is “poverty?”

When most of us think of poverty, we think of absolute impoverishment.  We picture a skin-and-bones woman clutching her malnourished baby to her breast in a place like India, where more than 40% of the population live on less than $1.25 a day, or in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 60% of the population lives like that.  That is what the World Bank has defined as “absolute” or “extreme poverty.”

But what about here at home, in the United States?  According to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in September of 2011, the poverty rate here is more than 15%.  Does that mean that more than 15% of Americans are having a hard time feeding, clothing, and housing their families?  Not necessarily.

A friend of mine recently wrote a piece for an undergraduate publication called The Ideas Forum that helps to shed light on poverty in America.  She writes: “Though I had never felt poor growing up, the official indexed report from Health and Human Services placed my family in the category of being ‘extremely impoverished’—the lowest possible standard of living for a child in the United States…Being one of ten kids living off of one working parent in 2003, I was off the charts in devastating, hopeless poverty.”  Nearly ten years later, she has six more siblings, and according to the government, her family is in even worse shape than ever.  “Yet,” she says, “I still don’t feel very poor.”

That’s because poverty in American is measured on a relative scale.  As a result of the widespread productivity and prosperity in our nation’s history, Americans enjoy much higher standard of living than almost anywhere else in the world.  This leads to a somewhat skewed vision of what poverty means in our country.

According to a 2007 paper by Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation, nearly three-quarters of households classified as poor by the federal government own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.  Sixty-two percent of poor households have cable or satellite TV service; over half of them own two or more color televisions.  Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning.

In summary, the report says: “Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave.  He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo.  He is able to obtain medical care.  His home is in good repair and not overcrowded…While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty.”

That is a picture of what “poverty” means to the American government.  It is not a measure of how well families can provide for themselves.  Rather, it is a relative standard, comparing the amount of income that individuals and families have.

While this may be the situation of the average “impoverished” American, I am not pointing this out to detract from those who truly are in need.  There are people here in the United States who are in desperate need of help, who struggle to feed and clothe their children on a regular basis.  We do have a moral responsibility to help them, as the proponents of Faithful Budget Campaign recognize.  But because of the difficult financial situation our nation is in right now, we do need to distinguish between the people who really need our help and those who don’t.

Passing a budget without any cuts to social programs is impractical.  We need to deal with our debt and deficit problems and not keep putting it off.  I have no doubt that many Christians, including the ‘Nuns on the Bus’ deal with those who are truly desperate, and are fighting to help them.  But our current government standard of poverty is not set up to help the extreme minority who really are in need.

According to The Heritage Foundation, 11 percent of the households classified as “impoverished” by the U.S. government “sometimes” or “often” don’t have enough money to meet their basic living needs.  Not 11 percent of American households, 11 percent of those in “poverty.”  But instead of focusing on the 11 percent who are truly in need, the current system caters to the 89 percent of the “poor” who will keep voting for anyone who continues to subsidize their living.

In this debate, we all want the same thing: to fulfill the moral duty that Jesus laid on us in Matthew 25 when he said to care for those less fortunate than ourselves –“the least of these.”  But in order to do that, we need to reassess what it means to be “impoverished” so we can focus on the people who truly in need of our help.