Last year I wrote a post entitled, The Boyfriend, in which I discussed the phenomenon that critics both inside and outside of the church sometimes call Jesus Is My Boyfriend music. That post featured examples of Christian songs that refer to God and/or Jesus in rather intimate terms. In this post, I’m going to address the practice of co-opting secular love songs and addressing them to Jesus.

My first conscious, deliberate and willing engagement in this practice occurred when I was 17 years old. The summer I was 17 was one of three that I spent traveling with an evangelistic team (I’m embarrassed to admit that we had hugely inflated egos about our talent level). Our group’s leader suggested that our lead singer should sing Carole King’s gorgeous song, “You Light Up My Life” (from her Fantasy album). Since the song in its original key was pitched too low for our singer, I stayed up until 4:00 a.m. and wrote an arrangement suited to her range. Naturally, it featured a fun piano part for me to play. If you’re not familiar with the song, here are the lyrics:

You light up my life like sunrise in the morning;
You make me believe anything is possible.
I didn’t have a dream to my name,
Darkness was mine, it was such a shame,
But you came to light up my life,
You brought me faith and hope and love and light.

With your tender smile you brought me to the promise
Of life outside a world of 9-to-5 and Sunday.
I didn’t know how rich I could be
Until you gave your love to me.
Don’t you see, you light up my life,
You give me faith and hope and love and light.

You brought your sweet understanding
Like sun rays in my hazy skies.
If you hadn’t opened up my eyes
Love would have passed me by, right on by.

I never knew how good I could feel,
Loving you’s left me with nothing to conceal.
Yeah – you really light up my life,
You give me faith and hope and love and light.

If you’d like to hear Carole King sing it, sit back and listen:

Fast forward a few years. Since I’m part of a worship band at a weekend youth retreat, I spend much of Saturday jamming and rehearsing with the other band members. The leader, a big guy about 6′4″ who weighs at least 300 pounds, decides that the song before the sermon will be, “You Are So Beautiful,” his love song to Jesus. Instead of singing, though (which he does quite well), he’s going to play his trombone (which he does very well – he played trombone in a symphony orchestra before becoming a minister); his friend Marty is going to play the piano, and I’m going to provide a string bass line on my synthesizer. We don’t have an arrangement to work with; we just find a key to play in and follow the leader. Jump ahead to Sunday morning. Marty wakes up with a nauseating migraine and Bruce comes to me a few minutes before the service, saying, “Marty can’t make it today. I need you to play the piano for ‘You Are So Beautiful.’” So, I improvised an accompaniment while Bruce serenaded Jesus.

To complete the intended effect, picture Jesus sitting across from you in a candlelit room as you sing these words:

You are so beautiful to me.
You are so beautiful to me.
Can’t you see?
You’re everything I hoped for,
You’re everything I need.
You are so beautiful to me

Such joy and happiness you bring.
Such joy and happiness you bring.
Like a dream,
A guiding light that shines in the night,
Heaven’s gift to me.
You are so beautiful to me.

Now, watch and listen as Joe Cocker sings the song to you:

The final song that I’ll feature is not one that I’ve ever sung or played to Jesus, but it’s one that’s readily adapted to the Jesus Is My Boyfriend genre: “Have I Told You Lately,” by Rod Stewart. Can you see yourself singing this to Jesus? Some people can.

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have I told you there’s no one else above you?
You fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness,
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do.

For the morning sun and all its glory
Meets the day with hope and comfort too.
You fill my life with laughter, somehow you make it better,
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do.

There’s a love that’s divine,
And it’s yours and it’s mine like the sun.
And at the end of the day
We should give thanks and pray to the one, to the one.

Have I told you lately that I love you?
Have I told you there’s no one else above you?
You fill my heart with gladness, take away all my sadness,
Ease my troubles, that’s what you do.

Now, let Rod woo you:

I think I’ve covered all the bases in the Jesus is My Boyfriend genre

a) songs written by Christians to, or about, Jesus, and
b) secular love songs co-opted by Christians and dedicated to their friend, savior, lord and lover.

If I’ve missed any possibilities, let me know. In the meantime, I’ll issue this warning: if you write a really nice love song, the odds are pretty high that some Christian will pick it up and sing it to Jesus.

– the chaplain

A little over a week ago (March 7, to be precise), I wrote a post about a policy that the Washington DC branch of Catholic Charities implemented earlier this month. Then, just a few days ago (March 11, to refresh our memories), I posted excerpts (and a bit of commentary) from the president’s advisory council’s report on Faith-Based charities. This post ties together the subjects of both of those posts. I’ll start with the Catholic Charities connection.

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State posted a story today about a new practice that Catholic Charities (Washington, DC office) implemented immediately after announcing a major change to its health insurance benefit. In addition to being unable to add spouses to their health insurance plans, new employees at Catholic Charities (which receives about $22 million per year in government funds) are now required to sign a statement promising that they “will not ‘violate the principles or tenets’ of the church.”

According to a spokesperson for Catholic Charities,

“the new language ‘is more of an expectation than a condition. It’s letting people know this is the culture.’ Asked if that meant employees could speak or act against the church without being fired, Salmi said: ‘We can’t speculate on the hypothetical. It’s handled on a case-by-case basis.’”

A former vice president at Catholic Charities disagrees with this spin. According to him, “Putting it in a letter and requiring a signature, that’s a condition of employment. There’s no way to dance around that….”

Not having seen the actual statement myself, I can only report what others have said about it. According to Americans United,

It’s a sweeping statement – one that would allow Catholic Charities to dismiss employees for virtually any infraction of church rules, from failure to attend religious services and using artificial contraceptives to cohabitation and publicly criticizing church leaders.

While the better optimistic side of my nature hopes that the statement wouldn’t be used against employees in such a draconian manner, the reality-based side of me knows that it could happen. I don’t say this as a cynic, skeptic or anti-theist; I say it because I work in human resources and I know first-hand how even seemingly innocuous statements can be used against employees.

At this point, I’ll say that I don’t care who religious organizations hire to perform tasks related to their religious functions. It’s a no-brainer that churches should be able to hire Christian education directors, music ministers and the like who agree with and uphold the tenets of their faith. Moreover, the salaries of people holding such positions are usually paid for by funds the churches and organizations raise through their own efforts, with no infusion of government funds. But, religious organizations that want to serve their communities through social service programs – and who accept funds from any government bodies to fulfill those particular commitments – should be required to adhere to the same hiring standards as anyone else when filling positions related to those programs. The next story provides an excellent example of what I mean.

A religious agency called World Relief, which got its start feeding and clothing people during World War II, refused to hire a Muslim man because he is not a Christian. World Relief is prohibited from proselytizing recipients of its services, but can discriminate on the basis of religion in its hiring practices. Fluent in both Arabic and English, Saad Mohammad Ali applied for a position as a caseworker whose primary task would have been helping Iraqi refugees re-settle in the United States. Ali, who came to the USA as an Iraqi refugee two years ago and served as a volunteer with World Relief, was probably as good a candidate for the position as anyone. There is no good reason why a Muslim, Arabic-speaking person familiar with both World Relief and Iraqi culture could not fill the position of World Relief’s caseworker to Arabic-speaking Iraqis. There are many lousy reasons, but no good ones. Here’s the kicker: this organization that prefers employing Christians rather than people of other backgrounds who are qualified to deliver its services receives 70% of its funds from government sources. Think about that as you consider this little gem, courtesy of a World Relief spokesperson:

“At times we feel a lot of hopelessness so we spend a lot of time in prayer,” she said. “So and so can’t get a job, we can’t find them one and we ask God to lift things up in prayer.”

Wonderful. That’s the kind of practical re-settlement service our tax dollars are paying for. If World Relief were entirely self-funded, I wouldn’t give a damn who they hired and why. But, they are far from self-funded and I resent like hell that any of my tax money is paying for them to fill their payroll with drones who believe that prayer is a useful strategy for helping people find work.

The Washington Post reminds us that

As a candidate, President Obama sided with those opposing such hiring limits and vowed to stop them. But since Obama took office, the issue has remained under study by the Justice Department.

Since I don’t expect the Obama administration to stop studying this matter and start addressing it any time soon, I think I’ll go ahead and print that 176-page report the president’s advisory council gave him last week. I figure all those pages are equivalent to approximately one roll of toilet paper.

– the chaplain

I loved living in the American Midwest. People were friendly. The pace of life suited me. Unfortunately, it seems that some  folks out there need the services of some secular babysitters, because they’re getting themselves into trouble and creating troubles for others, too.

Here’s the first item that caught my eye this morning:

INDIANAPOLIS – The top-ranked senior at a suburban Indianapolis high school is asking a federal judge to stop a graduation prayer that the class voted to approve.

The lawsuit by 18-year-old Eric Workman claims the prayer and the vote at Greenwood High School unconstitutionally subject religious practice to majority rule.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed the lawsuit on Workman’s behalf. It says, “He does not believe that anyone should involuntarily be subjected to prayer and religious beliefs.”

But Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana, says, “Part of being an adult is learning to tolerate speech you don’t like.”

Eric Workman and the ACLU are right. The fact that the students voted on the issue does not render the results fair, right or Constitutional. Subjecting items to votes is sometimes a sneaky way to take on the appearance of behaving democratically while imposing the whims of the many upon the few. It’s also a way for leaders to abdicate their responsibility to make tough decisions, some of which undoubtedly will be unpopular. The United States is a republic in which minority rights are protected from the tyranny of majority rule. Moreover, the graduation ceremony of a secular public high school is not a religious event. The decision in this situation is a no-brainer: compulsory sectarian prayers are no more appropriate there than at the league championship game at the local bowling alley.

Micah Clark’s statement, while true, is priceless, coming as it does from the lips of an executive of the American Family Association. He should keep his advice in mind the next time atheists, or gays, or Wiccans, or women, say things he doesn’t like. Perhaps things like, gays have the same right to marry (and take their dates to the public, not sectarian, school prom) as straights. Or this: atheists are not ipso facto immoral just because we don’t accept any texts as sacred, or pay heed to gods, spirits, stars, crystals and other ethereal influences. Or even this: public high school graduations are not appropriate venues for prayers.

Then there’s this gem:

A move to add a personhood amendment to the state constitution is under way in Iowa.

The proposal calls for the state to recognize human eggs as persons deserving legal protection, and the drive in the House is spearheaded by Representative Dwayne Alons.

“We’ve found out so many things about life and development in the womb, about a person,” he comments. “And I believe it’s time that we really start recognizing that a person does begin at conception, and that right to life should be put intact and stay there for a person from the very beginning of the biological process.”

The problem in both houses of the Iowa legislature, according to Alons, is that they are controlled by liberals.

“They have resisted most of the bills for the most part — I’d say just about all the bills that relate to changing anything related to life and right to life,” the state lawmaker notes. “So it’s an uphill battle, but hopefully this will gain momentum.”

The bill would put an end to abortion in Iowa, but it would also bar research using human embryos. The measure must pass both houses before being placed on a state ballot.

Alons apparently holds that eggs are persons, and women are not. Neither are all of those already-born humans who could benefit from the results of research done with human embryos. I have some hope that this amendment will die in Alons’ lap, since the Iowa legislature is, according to Alons, “controlled by liberals” who have “resisted most of the bills” of this type. Of course, one need not even be particularly liberal to understand how nonsensical this bill is. Moreover, any state legislation that would render abortion illegal would be un-Constitutional. And – color me shocked! – we have another Christofascist trying to circumvent the Constitution by putting an initiative like this to a public vote. Repeat after me: the fact that something wins a majority of votes does not render it Constitutional, fair or right.

Christians have the right to pray in their homes and churches. They even have the right to pray in public. They do not have the right to compel their neighbors to pray with them, nor do they have the right to impose their prayers in secular ceremonies, a category to which public high school graduations belong. Christians also have the right not to have abortions; the fact that abortion is legal does not render it mandatory. They do not have the right to impose their preference on those who do not share their view. They cherish their freedom of religion, and rightly so. I cherish my freedom to reject their religious tenets. They cherish their right to participate in public life, and rightly so. I also cherish my right to participate in public life. Some Christians seem to think that the American form of governance establishes majority rule on all matters, that might (and/or numbers) makes right. Wrong. The American form of governance balances the rights of the majority with the rights of minorities. This means that Christians should confine their prayers to the places where they belong, and they should respect the rights of others to make reproductive choices with which they disagree. Prayers are not appropriate at public school graduations, and eggs are not persons. Tolerate that speech, Mr. Clark.

– the chaplain

President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships unveiled its report, “A New Era of Partnerships” yesterday. You may recall that the committee’s assignment was to “develop recommendations on how the government can better partner with faith and neighborhood based organizations.”

According to the White House press release (cited above), the final report, which is 176 pages long, made “more than 60 consensus recommendations.” Eboo Patel, who served on the committee, reported that the committee made “60-some” and “60-plus” recommendations. Jesus Howard Christ! Can’t anyone count above 60? Patel was there, for Thor’s sake! How difficult is it for him, or the White House press office, to say that the committee made 64 recommendations (yes, I counted every single one of them), several of which were also accompanied by sub-recommendations?

As I’ve already mentioned, the full report is long: 176 pages – many of which are filled, or nearly filled, with glossy feel-good photos.  Nevertheless, the report does actually have some textual content. Since I can’t copy and paste text from a .pdf document (if anyone knows how to do this, please enlighten me), I’ll share some screen captures with you.

I’ll start with the major areas that the six sub-committees studied:

The thirteen recommendations regarding economic recovery and domestic poverty are:

The nine recommendations regarding fatherhood and families are:

The committee also made nine recommendations regarding the environment and climate change:

The next section of the report addresses inter-religious cooperation:

The committee then looked outside of the USA’s borders and considered global poverty and development:

And, the final task force focused on reform of the faith-based and neighborhood partnerships office:

One of the sub-sections that may interest you dealt with abstinence-based sex education. The committee was supportive of separating religious abstinence sex education programs from government-funded sex education programs. One of the recommendations was:

I haven’t had a chance, yet, to digest the recommendations, let alone the entire report. I will read the report carefully in the next few days and may have more to say about it later. Regardless of whether nonbelievers like it (many of us don’t), faith-based initiatives (which originated in the Charitable Choice Act of 1996) will be with us for quite some time into the future. That being the case, it behooves nonbelievers to keep abreast of developments in this area. History has taught us (or should have taught us) that blurring the boundaries between church and the state does not, ultimately, serve either institution well (not that I particularly care about the interests of religion). To the contrary, history has shown – repeatedly – that such blurring is often detrimental to both church and state. Any partnerships between the two must be monitored and tweaked incessantly to ensure that the interests of both parties are respected until the relationship dissolves, either from lack of interest on the part of one or both partners, or, ideally, lack of need on the part of society.

– the chaplain

Charity must begin at home, because one cannot count on it beginning at church. Perhaps I should say, one cannot count on charity beginning at the Roman Catholic Church. Not if one is gay. You may recall that, in November 2009, the city of Washington D.C. passed a law recognizing gay marriages, a law that the city’s Catholic Archdiocese opposed immediately. An objection they raised was this:

Under the bill…religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.

Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.

It didn’t take long for Catholic Charities to devise a solution to this dilemma (and keep government funds flowing their way): as of March 2, 2010, employees of Catholic Charities are not allowed to add spouses to their health insurance plans. This applies to the spouses of straight and gay employees alike. Since the organization can’t blatantly provide benefits to one group (straights) and deny said benefits to the other (gays), it will simply deny benefits to all of them. Equal opportunity exclusion. Because that’s what Jesus would do.

The policy applies to new employees enrolling for benefits after March 2; spouses covered before that date will retain their benefits. The group explained its decision in a memo:

We sincerely regret that we have to make this change, but it is necessary to allow Catholic Charities to continue to provide essential services to the clients we serve in partnership with the District of Columbia while remaining consistent with the tenets of our religious faith.

The tenets of their religious faith. Those tenets include sheltering priests who rape children and shuffling those predators from one traumatized diocese to another unsuspecting diocese to another, and another, and another ad infinitum. They include purchasing abuse victims’ silence, or, when that fails, paying them large sums of money in legal settlements. They include lying to millions of African AIDS victims about the efficacy of condoms in reducing the spread of that dreadful disease. They include opposing the rights of men and women to control their reproduction via contraception and abortion. And they include withholding basic employment benefits from people who marry spouses with matching rather than complementary genitalia. Do you look at those tenets and see anything worth preserving? I sure as hell don’t. If you agree with me and you want to donate some time or money to a charity, you may want to consider giving to a secular charitable group. Contrary to the myth that many fundogelicals are peddling, churches are not the only charitable organizations in town, and Christians are not the only people who give time and money to their communities.

For this atheist, charity must begin at home because religious charity often comes with strings attached. And if those strings can’t be attached, then some groups cut off both the strings and the gifts. Their thinking seems to be, ’tis far better that no one get anything at all than that the wrong people get something. That may be the Catholic Charities’ way; it certainly is not mine.

– the chaplain

Now that the Olympics are over, you may find yourself with too much time on your hands and not a thing to do. Luckily for you, I’ve found two great board games that you can play with your friends and family.

Since one never knows when the next conclave will occur, you’ll want to get this game right away so that you’ll be prepared to take over the reins of the Roman Catholic Church when Pope Benny leaves terra firma. Behold, I present unto you, The Vatican!

Once you’ve reached the lofty heights of the Vatican, you may have to refresh your memory of some of those doctrines (papal infallibility, immaculate conception, etc.). I’ve got just what you need – Catechism of the Catholic Church!

What are you waiting for? Click on those links and add these games to your collection today.

– the chaplain

Tilikum, a whale who has been held captive at a Sea World park in Orlando, Florida, killed an animal trainer yesterday. Let me make it clear right now that I don’t want to minimize the tragedy of the trainer’s death in any way. According the Washington Post, she loved her job, she loved the animals she trained, and she loved and was loved by many friends and family members. Her death is mourned by many. Nevertheless, the manner of her death raises a moral issue for me; I can’t find any justification for the human practice of capturing and enslaving other living beings for our entertainment.

Dawn Branchaeu is the third human being that Tilikum has killed in the past 19 years. Methinks that Tilikum may not be overly enamored with the species that has enslaved him and trained him to do cute tricks for our amusement. Now, the Sea World management doesn’t have a clue what to do with Tilikum. He doesn’t have the requisite skills to survive in the wild, so releasing him to the sea would be the equivalent of a death sentence. I don’t know whether capital punishment euthanasia is under consideration; if it is, the Sea World PR people are holding their tongues about it. One option the Sea World management is considering is transferring Tilikum to another diocese amusement park.

I don’t know how to resolve Sea World’s Tilikum dilemma. All I know is that this story has made me think, again, about the morality of keeping animals in zoos, aquariums and amusement parks so that human beings may be entertained for a few hours a day. In the past two years I’ve visited the San Diego Zoo and the Georgia Aquarium. On both occasions I was mildly uneasy about the fact that I was enjoying nature in starkly unnatural, artificial settings. That unease has prevented me from visiting the National Zoo just down the road from me in Washington, DC. Tilikum’s story has compelled me to take a position on this issue. As of this moment, I am putting a personal moratorium on visits to zoos, aquariums and the like. I don’t know if I’ll change my mind about this in the future. All I know is that, for the time being, I can’t justify holding other living beings captive for my amusement. I mourn both Dawn Brancheau’s lost life and Tilikum’s lost freedom. Both losses were senseless and unnecessary. That’s the real tragedy of this story.

UPDATE: The Los Angeles Times reports that “A SeaWorld official said Wednesday the animal would not be put down.”

– the chaplain

Yesterday afternoon, during the TV broadcast of an Olympic hockey game (the Swiss men’s team beat the Norwegian men’s team 5-4 in overtime), a sportscaster told a bizarre story. Actually, the story wasn’t bizarre at all – it was entirely believable in the brutal world of hockey; what was bizarre was the way he told the story, which hovered somewhere between infantile and juvenile. This is what happened.

The TV camera zoomed to a closeup of a Norwegian player wiping blood from his forehead; his head had met the edge of another player’s hockey stick and suffered the predictable – in fact, familiar – consequence of such an encounter. As viewers and sportcasters watched the player’s blood transfer from his head to his handheld towel, a sportscaster reported another injury this same player had suffered in a previous season:

He took a stick to a very rough spot for a male, if you know what I mean. He missed a lot of games because of that injury, and doctors thought, for a while, that they might have to cut away some parts of that rough spot, if you know what I mean.

I shook my head in wonder at the juvenile idiocy of this commentary. The player’s “rough spot” has a name – either his penis or his testicles. I apologize for my lack of specificity, dear readers, but that’s the best I can do at parsing exactly what the commentator was talking about. I can’t help wondering whether talking about this injury, even in such a vague, circuitous fashion, made him blush profusely. What kind of juvenile, puritanical nation are we when adults can’t discuss body parts without resorting to nonsensical euphemisms? Why is it so difficult for so many of us to identify penises, vaginas, breasts, or testicles, as easily as we identify arms, legs, toes and the like? I understand, and expect, that broadcasters will not generally use common terminology (which is sometimes considered to be – and sometimes is, in fact – crude) when discussing medical issues and anatomy. But, can’t they please call body parts by their proper, grown up names? Doing anything less than that makes them sound like juveniles. Moreover, listening to such linguistic nonsense makes the rest of us appear to be similarly juvenile. Worst of all, accepting this nonsense in public discourse makes it easy for all of us to think, as well as speak, like juveniles. We really need to grow up and start talking – and thinking – like adults.

– the chaplain

In lieu of reviewing the Kindle 2 today, I’m posting a meme that my boss’s wife sent me via email. The email version requires that one complete the meme, then forward it to ten people. Since I’m transposing the meme for the Internet, I’m going to modify the rules a bit.

RULES:
Using the first letter of your last name, answer the questions listed below. You may do this in the comments on this thread, and/or on your blog. If you do it on your blog, leave a comment here. If you do it on your blog and want to tag ten people, go right ahead.  If you want to play along, consider yourself tagged.

1. Your last name
Sxxxx

2. 4 Letter Word
Shit

3. A Boy’s Name
Samuel

4. A Girl’s name
Samantha

5. An Occupation
Spy

6. A Color
Silver

7. Something you wear
Sweater

8. A Beverage
Screwdriver

9. A Food
Shrimp

10. Something Found in the Bathroom
Sink

11. A Place
Sydney

12. Something You Shout
(OH) SHIT!

Have fun and play nicely.

– the chaplain