Ooh Heaven is a Place on Earth

When Pat Robertson claimed that America would fall victim to a large-scale terrorist attack this year, I argued that “end times” theology was a deadly threat because it leads people to uncritical support for war in the middle east and to cheer every time there is a natural disaster because, according to the fanciful chronology they have worked out by stringing unrelated fragments of scripture together, each catastrophe brings us closer to the return of Jesus. Some Christians who believe we are living the final days/weeks/years before the Second Coming and Armageddon even think we can speed up Christ’s return by pushing the Earth and its inhabitants over the brink of disaster.

For these people, Global Warming is just such a sign and cause. They do not deny that Global Warming is happening, but they react with horror to the suggestion that we should do anything to stop it, because the sooner we have pillaged every last natural resource, harvested every rainforest, poisoned every ocean and dried up the third world’s water supply while flooding the world’s lifeless coastal regions, Jesus will come back, and they will leave this used up hulk of a planet behind and go live in “heaven.”

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported this week on a fundamentalist Christian family in Federal Way, Washington who managed to thwart the local school district’s attempt to show the popular documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

"The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is,” said parent Frosty Hardison. “The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD." Hardison doesn’t want to deny Global Warming, he wants to promote it.

Does the Bible really say that? True, Revelation is chock full of natural disasters, from earthquakes to hundred pound hailstones. There is a great deal of destructive imagery, but nowhere does it encourage us to incite war and rejoice at disaster, a suggestion that is as far away from the message of the Gospel as anything possibly could be.

Fundamentalists talk about the “Rapture,” a made-up event where Christians will suddenly disappear from the world and be “taken up” to heaven. But Revelation – the book they claim to take so literally – very clearly says in Chapter 21 that the Holy City, “a new Jerusalem,” comes down to us. Revelation, for all its gory imagery, isn’t about death and destruction, but hope and healing. The world isn’t going to be incinerated, but rather made whole.

The Gospels don’t present us with a Jesus who left violent instructions to encourage his return, but rather a Messiah who taught us to pray, “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”

We don’t tend to think of 80s pop songs in terms of their apocalyptic theology, but Belinda Carlisle, in her 1987 #1 hit “Heaven is a Place on Earth,” got a lot closer to the message of Revelation than end-times fanatics ever have:

Ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth?
Ooh heaven is a place on earth
They say in heaven love comes first
We'll make heaven a place on earth
Ooh heaven is a place on earth

Hat tip: Towleroad

100

Let the countdown begin.

Sly, or Just Pathetic? You Decide.

Today I agreed to set up a meeting with a salesman just because he sounded hot on the phone.

Introducing: Buy My Stuff!

I'm purging my book collection and have listed 40-some titles with Amazon.com under the seller name "lastdebater." Please check out the link under my profile on the right and see if there's anything you'd like! Check back frequently for updates and additions.

If anyone's interested, I have some rare opera vocal scores that Amazon doesn't have listings for. If you'd be interested in the Kalmus editions of Donizetti's Belisario, Maria Padilla, Maria di Rohan and Poliuto, Bellini's La Straniera or Berlioz' Les Troyens a Carthage (Part II of the larger Les Troyens, not including La Prise de Troie), please contact me directly.

All proceeds benefit The Rocky & Starbuck Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading awareness of LGBT issues among felines of faith.

PS, if you gave me any of these books as gifts, thank you, I loved them, and I want to share them!

*Legal disclaimer: The Rocky & Starbuck Foundation is not a real organization. I will probably use your money to buy booze, or possibly move to Oregon.

Fire Me, Please

I wish I sucked so bad at my job that they had to pay me to leave.

By now you’ve probably heard about Robert L. Nardelli, the former CEO of Home Depot, who “resigned abruptly” last week “after enduring six years of mounting criticism.” The controversy wasn’t over his performance. The shareholders thought his salary -- $64 million over 6 years – was exorbitant. So they fired him, with a parting gift of about 20 years’ worth his controversial salary. The New York Times headline? Highly Paid Chief is Paid $210 Million to Go Away. (Incidentally, that’s around 20 times the size of my company’s annual budget; or, put another way, he earned somewhere just above my annual salary every day.)

Is it just me, or is something seriously rotten in the State of America?

If I got fired from my job, not only would I not expect a severance package larger than the Cook Islands GDP, I would be worried about my ability to get hired again. Yet Leon Cooperman, one of Home Depot’s largest shareholders, told CNBC “about an hour after news of Mr. Nardelli’s departure” that “he will wind up making a lot more money with a lot less grief in the private equity world.”

That’s right, fresh from being tossed out on his ear (landing on a $210 million cushion) because he was making more than $10 million a year, Mr. Nardelli can now go to the private sector where, like Mark P. Frissora, who in July left his public job where “he was only making a few million dollars a year,” he could maybe expect to earn $33 million in six months (or, my annual salary about once every hour and ten minutes).

Compared to private sector CEO’s, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts’ recent complaint seems downright modest. Federal district court judges are paid $165,200 annually; Chief Justice Roberts earns $212,100. The inadequacy of this pay scale, according to Roberts, “has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis.”

What about the other end of America’s economic spectrum? Washington Post columnist George Will said last week, “The federal minimum wage is a bad idea whose time has come….The minimum wage should be the same everywhere: $0.”

Assuming a 40-hr week, right now the federal minimum wage will earn you $10,712 annually. Will points out that “more than half” of minimum wage earners are under 25 and that 60% of minimum-wage earners only work part-time and have “an average household income…well over $40,000.” So, let’s get this straight: a $212,000 individual salary is a constitutional crisis, but a total household income of more than $40,000 – we are meant to understand that “well over $40,000” means “significantly less than $50,000 and more than one earner” – means you have no right to complain, especially if you’re under 25?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that burger-flippers are entitled to the same pay as a Chief Justice or a corporate CEO.

But is it just me, or is it obscene that corporate America complains that “regulation” – meaning federal requirements about minimum wage and benefits – renders companies “less competitive”? Competitive, in this case, has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the service or product, and everything to do with the profit margin and the size of executive pay, which is determined by how little a company is required to pay its non-executive workforce in salary and benefits. It’s not just obscene, it’s morally repulsive when executives make thousands of dollars an hour and right-wing columnists argue that non-skilled (but essential!) laborers are hampering “market forces” (i.e., executive salaries) by asking for more than $5.15 an hour.

Or, to put it another way, on the current minimum wage, you’d have to work full time for more than 19,000 years to earn what Home Depot paid Nardelli to go away.

Hat tips: Matt’s World, Dappled Things

Sunday Photo Blogging: Crazy Cats

As it's been so long since I posted pictures of the cats, I'm sure you were all wondering if they were even still alive. Yes, yes they are. And crazier than ever. (The cat doesn't fall far from the tree, as the saying goes.)

Be careful what you say in my apartment. The trash cans have ears.

Note to self: be careful not to recycle the cat. Strange place for a nap, no?

"Thank you for finally doing the dishes so there's room for me in here."

Oh boy, bathtime! Whenever I turn on the faucets, the cats come running. (Yes, my bathroom is gross and the water is a funny color. Welcome to Washington Heights.)

Rocky likes to sit on the edge of the tub and watch it fill up. He bats at the bubbles when they get close enough. Starbuck is the one who likes to watch it drain.

Every cat I've ever known has been terrified of the bathtub. So of course here's Rocky hanging out, just letting his tail float in the tub. Having a cat sitting over your shoulder in the bathtub takes some getting used to.

Prophet or Profit?

Is Pat Robertson God’s prophet?

Yesterday on his TV program The 700 Club, Robertson claimed that God had spoken to him during a recent retreat and revealed a major terrorist attack on the United States in late 2007, a “mass killing” involving multiple cities and potentially millions of victims. “I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” he clarified. “The Lord didn’t say nuclear.”

Damn right he didn’t.

Fundamentalist Christians focus on “Biblical prophecy.” Tim LaHaye, co-author of the reprehensible and heretical Left Behind novels, likes to point out that “twenty-eight percent of the Bible is dedicated to prophecy.” Millions of American Christians have come to “understand” the Bible as a secret code that reveals events as signs of the end of the world.

Fundamentalists addicted to “end-times” theology eagerly await mass disasters like the 2004 tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the attacks of 9/11. They cheer on the war in Iraq, because they believe destabilization of the Middle East will bring about the “nuclear armageddon” necessary to usher in the Second Coming. Nuclear warfare plays an enormous role in the current end-times fantasies. The Left Behind books open just after a full-out nuclear assault by Russia on Israel, and LaHaye has commented that “ours is the first generation that has the technology and opportunity to uniquely fulfill the many prophecies of Revelation.”

Therein lies the significance of Robertson’s prediction. He isn’t warning us out of concern for our safety; he is announcing gleefully that millions of people are going to die, and Christians should rejoice because nuclear carnage means we are just that much closer to the return of Jesus and the baseless fundamentalist “Rapture” fantasy.

But like everything else Robertson and extremists of his ilk preach, these ideas about “Biblical prophecy” are fundamentally in error, based on a profound and heretical misunderstanding of Scripture. Prophecy, in this instance, does not mean foretelling future events.

Evangelical pastor Jim Wallis, in his best-selling book God’s Politics, calls the Biblical prophets “ancient moral articulators.” “Whom were the prophets speaking to?” he asks. Rulers, kings, judges, employers, landlords, owners of property and wealth. “Those in charge of things were the ones called to the greatest accountability. “And whom were the prophets usually speaking for? The dispossessed, widows and orphans (read: poor single moms), the hungry, the homeless, the helpless, the least, last and lost.” And “what were their subjects? Quite secular topics, really – land, labor, capital, wages, debt, taxes, equity, fairness, courts, prisons, immigrants, other races and peoples, economic divisions, social justice, war and peace.”

Lutheran pastor Barbara Rossing says, “Their task was to set God’s vision before the people so they could see it and live it. Prophets condemn injustice and greed; they advocate for the poor, for widows and for orphans.”

In short, “Biblical prophecy” is, nine times out of ten, not at all about predicting the future, but speaking truth to power.

“The Lord has just blessed him. It doesn’t make any difference what he does, good or bad,” said Robertson, speaking of President Bush in January of 2004.

Does that sound like the language of Isaiah, Micah, Amos and Habakkuk?

Changes

Well, if this isn't your first visit to The Last Debate, presumably you've noticed some changes to the template. These aren't necessarily final changes, so feel free to tell me what you think. I like that the new Blogger gives you these options, but I hope with time there are even more options (especially fonts, hello).

I intend for 2007 to be a year of major change for me. It's going to be scary. Looks like I'm going to end up leaping and hoping the net appears. Who knows where I will be a year from now? Will I be happier? Or will I have just moved my neuroses and anxieties to a different coast? Am I just trading one set of problems for another?

Don't worry, there will still be lots of cat pictures.

Best wishes to each and every one of you for this coming year.

I will leave 2006 behind and look forward to 2007 with the song "Only If..." by Enya:

When there's a shadow near, reach for the sun

When there is love in you, look for the one

And for the promises, there is the sky

And for the heavens are those who can fly

If you really want to, you can hear me say

Only if you want to will you find a way

If you really want to you can seize the day

Only if you want to will you fly

When there's a journey here follow the star

When there's an ocean here sail to far

And for the broken hearts there is the sky

And for tomorrow are those who can Fly

I Heart New York

For its year-end double issue, New York Magazine’s cover story was “Reasons to Love New York Right Now.” This feature was, in a word, retarded. I wrote an entire post in response entitled “Reasons to Leave New York,” but then I decided it didn’t accurately represent my relationship with this city.

New York drives me nuts, sometimes literally. And the reasons given for loving New York in this magazine are so vapid and so far removed from anything resembling my life here that it temporarily made me hate New York even more. When I’ve been standing for 20 minutes in a dingy, filthy, smelly, rat-infested subway station waiting for a packed train on which I will uncomfortably stand for the hour-long ride home with 100 or more other similarly irritated people, I am not particularly comforted by the idea that New York has “Four, Yes Four, Presidential Wannabes” (Clinton, Giuliani, Pataki and Bloomberg). And I’m sorry, I can’t look on the bright side and consider my “Daily Commute A Fashion Show.” The A train is more derelicte than Gaultier.

What to make of a magazine that zealously boasts “We Can Be Defiantly Deluded”? Who says, “I love New Yorkers; they’re so…like, defiantly deluded”? What to make of a feature whose longest section, at three pages, is about looking through your neighbors’ windows? And who the hell is Zani Gugelmann?

Yes, I’ve pretty much resolved to leave The Big Apple sometime this year. Living here wears me out. Still, I love New York.

I love Central Park in the snow. I love the path along the south side of The Pond, with its lazy sunbathing turtles.

I love piping hot fresh bagels on Broadway, latkes on 2nd Avenue, samosas on 6th Street, cannoli on Bleecker, and char siu bao on Canal.

I love the Thursday night classic films at the Clearview on 23rd Street.

I love Freudian Sips, Psychotic Episodes and Daddy Complexes on West 52nd.

I love the young Orthodox Jewish man on the A train who offered his seat to a young Muslim woman last week.

I love the view of Manhattan from the Triboro Bridge. I love the view down 59th Street from the balcony at the TimeWarner Building.

I love Long Island accents.

I love the coffee at Samad’s and the espresso at Café Reggio.

I love the Temple of Dendur and Hudson River School collection, and I love this painting.

I love New York.

Five

Matt, presumably the only elected official in the world who reads my blog, has tagged me to confess five odd things about myself.

Only 5?

Ohkay, here we go.

1. Last night before going to bed, I read this book in the tub. (Expect some apocalyptic posts in the new year!) My cats Rocky and Starbuck like to sit on the rim of the tub and let their tails rest in the water while I am bathing. I can't lock them out; they'll scratch on the door and meow loudly until I let them in.

2. In my bathroom I have a clock which is basically a diorama of two squirrels in a pine tree.

3. I have lived in New York City for 13 years, but have never been to Madison Square Garden.

4. There were two seasons in a row at the Metropolitan Opera where I saw every single production, and even went back for significant cast changes, which necessitated about 1 trip to the opera per week every week from October - May. All in all, I have attended well over 200 performances at the Met. (I stopped keeping track a few years ago, unfortunately.)

5. In the spirit of five things, here are the five wackiest playlists on my iPod:

• Early Music: European music from about the 9th century (Gregorian chant) up to about 1600, everything from troubadour songs to early Flemish polyphony to Italian lute songs and renaissance dances.
  
• God: Standard stuff like Gregorian chant, the Mozart c-minor Mass, and The Messiah, but also Hindu, Buddhist and Sufi chant...and Madonna's "Like a Prayer." Seriously.
  
• Musical Monday: Named for the theme night at SBNY, all my Broadway music.
  
• Venice: 170 pieces all composed in Venice.
  
• Wake-Up: An assortment of all my favorite, up-tempo songs across all genres to get me going on those darker mornings, everything from Ghena Dimitrova singing Abigaille's cabaletta to Kelly Clarkson's "Since u been gone." (And of course, Barbra's "Don't Rain on my Parade.")

Sunday Photo Blogging: Meowy Christmas!

The short-lived, ill-fated Christmas Tree of 2006.

My patented anti-cat system. I didn't think anything was gonna bring this tree down.

I locked them in the bathroom while I put the tree up and then took a picture of their first reaction to the tree.

Uh-oh. "Aren't there supposed to be presents under this thing?"

Yeah, I think this was a sign.

Uh-huh. Go ahead and keep checking, honey, but I'm pretty sure that knocking over the Christmas Tree puts you on Santa's shitlist.

I'm not sure whether they're caroling, or plotting.

testing

Just checking how to post pictures using the new Blogger, since BloggerBot has been axed, apparently.

The Nativity Story?

In the 2003 film Love Actually, Emma Thompson’s character is surprised to learn that her daughter has been cast as the “First Lobster” in a nativity play. “There was more than one lobster present at the birth of Jesus?” she asks. “Duh,” replies her daughter.

I think many of us would share her shock. After all, even non-churchy types know the cast of the Nativity, from the dioramas that appear as centerpieces of First Amendment controversies about this time every year: there’s Mary and Joseph and the Holy Infant, of course, plus some shepherds and the three wise men. That’s how the Bible describes it, right?

Not exactly. Rather, the Bible presents us with two versions of the birth of Jesus. The Gospels of Mark and John don’t discuss it at all, but Matthew and Luke present two competing stories that over time have been morphed into a single familiar narrative.

The two versions aren’t just minor variations on details and wording, like so many other discrepancies in the Gospels. They are wholly separate stories. Only Matthew gives us three wise men and a star; only Luke gives us no room at the inn and a manger in a stable.

These stories present problems for Christians who insist the Bible is historically accurate. To make that assertion, one must piece together independent details not corroborated by any other source and make a claim for a textual unity that simply does not exist, and do so by deliberately ignoring elements of the story that are contradictory.

For example, everyone knows that Joseph and the pregnant Mary had to travel to Bethlehem from Nazareth to register for the census, and that because there was no room at the inn, Jesus was born in a manger in a stable. But Matthew doesn’t mention a census, and gives every indication that Jesus was simply born at home, though both agree Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Luke tells us, after Jesus’ circumcision and presentation at the temple, that “they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.” But Matthew says they fled to Egypt to escape King Herod’s massacre of all children “in and around Bethlehem,” and that they only returned after Herod’s death. Because Joseph was afraid of the new ruler, Archelaus, “he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth.”

So the next time you see a nativity scene that includes the Three Wise Men, you may perhaps want to point out that there is every bit as much scriptural support for their inclusion as there would be for a lobster, or even this particular variation.

On Cat Poo

How can something that smells so horrendous come out of something so adorable?

coffee, please

Okay, so I just shouted loudly at work, "ARGGGGH, MY MESS IS SUCH A DESK!!!"

Sigh.

The Episcopal Schism

As has been widely reported, this weekend two large and affluent Virginia dioceses voted to leave the Episcopal Church and instead place themselves under the authority of Archbishop Peter J. Akinola of Nigeria.

In prior drafts of this post, I made a vain attempt to give background on the history, theology and governance of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion, but it ran awfully long despite being oversimplified and was probably of zero interest to anyone who reads this blog. All of that is readily available elsewhere, anyway.

Instead, I want to talk about this word “Communion.” The “Anglican Communion” is the second largest body of Christians in the world, after the Roman Catholic Church. Traditionally it has sought a “middle way” between Catholicism and the more severe Protestant ideas.

“Communion” is a sacrament; it is the ceremonial distribution of wine mixed with water, representing the Blood of Christ, and unleavened bread, representing the Body of Christ. Christians believe that on the night before he died, Jesus celebrated the Passover (which itself commemorates God’s liberation of people from bondage) with his disciples, and he gave them wine and bread and instructed them always to eat and drink “in remembrance of me.”

The Greek term for this sacrament, still in use, is “Eucharist,” which means “thanksgiving.” “Communion” is of Latin origin, the same root as “community,” meaning “to share.” Along with baptism, this idea of a shared community meal in remembrance of Christ’s redeeming sacrifice has been a pillar of Christian practice since the earliest days of the faith.

Christians refer to “The Lord’s Table” when they speak of the sacrament of Communion. Unlike Catholics, Anglicans don’t accord themselves authority over who is invited to the meal. In Catholic Churches, only Catholics may partake of the sacrament, and priests have the power to excommunicate – disinvite anyone to God’s meal; in most Protestant churches, any baptized Christian may come. At the church I am attending, anyone, regardless of where they are on their spiritual journey, is welcome. We don’t believe in putting barriers between seekers and the God they are searching for. We believe that everyone is invited.

Throughout the Gospels, there are many references to meals and banquets. Jesus’ first miracle is turning water to wine at a wedding party. Matthew gives us the parable of the king who gave wedding banquet for his son, but the invited guests did not show up; so the king sent his servants out into the streets to invite everyone they saw, “both good and bad.” Luke tells us about the dinner where the Pharisee decided Jesus could not be a prophet, because he allowed a sinner to anoint him. In Matthew, the Pharisees ask, “Why does your teacher eat with sinners?”

The point is, in the Anglican view, it is Jesus’ invitation to a party to which all are welcome. Let Jesus do the healing, if healing needs to be done.

The churches in Truro and Falls Church, Virginia, have gotten up and left the table.

Sunday Photo Blogging: Cascade Head

This series has a few more pictures than I usually include, but the scenery was so spectacular. This photo was taken at the mouth of the Salmon River in Oregon, where it empties into the Pacific Ocean. The summit to the right is Cascade Head, 1200 feet above the ocean. Doesn't look so high from here...

D'oh, a deer!

This is why when Oregonians say they are going to the beach they often bring a sweater and a camera instead of sunscreen and a towel.

Climbing through the spruce forest on the way up. I just loved this shot.