Ten Ways Christians Tend to Fail at Being Christian

John Shore

Trying God's patience since   1958

Posted: May 7, 2010 01:43 AM

Speaking as someone who, well, had the conversion experience 14 years ago that I recounted in "I, a Rabid Anti-Christian, Very Suddenly Convert," we Christians too often fail in these ten ways:

1) Too much money. "Wealthy Christian" should be an oxymoron. In Luke 12:33, Jesus says, "Sell your possessions and give to the poor." In Matthew 19:21, he says, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor." In Matthew 6:24, he says, "You cannot serve God and Money." Christians are generally pretty huge on cleaving to the word of God. I just don't see how those particular words could be clearer. (For more on this, see my post "Christians: No Fair Heeding Paul on Gays But Not Jesus on Wealth.")

2) Too confident God thinks we're all that and a leather-bound gift Bible. I'd like to humbly suggest that we spend a little more time wondering how we displease God and a little less time being confident that we do. (See my post "Certainty in Christ: A Blessing and a Curse.")

3) Too quick to believe that we know what God really means by what he says in the Bible. The Bible is an extremely complex, multi-leveled work. We're sometimes too quick to assume that we grasp its every meaning. Take this passage, for instance, from Luke 8: 9-10: "His disciples asked him [Jesus] what this parable [of the sower] meant. He said, 'The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, "though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand."'" Huh? And that's Jesus "explaining" what is generally regarded as one of his most readily understood parables! Are we really all that confident that we always know exactly what Jesus meant by everything he said? Wouldn't we do well to sometimes admit that the words attributed to God manifested on earth are just a tad, well, Greek to us? (See my post "The Bible's Two Big Problems.")

4) Too action-oriented. We Christians could stand to spend less time acting in the name of God, and more time reflecting on the (ever subtle) majesty of God. We need more passivity, and less activity. More meditation, less machination. More reflection, less correction. More contemplation, less administration. More prayers, less airs. More mysticism, less ... um ... cretinism. (See my post "Doing Christianity vs. Being Christian.")

5) Too invasive of others generally. It is my personal, humble opinion that anyone seeking to mix church and state has failed to understand the nature and role of either. Being founded upon the principle that all men are created equal and deserving of equal protection under the law is what makes the American system of democracy such a gift to mankind. Attempting to mix the inherently exclusionary imperatives of a particular religion into the resolutely inclusive system of the American constitutional form of government is to work against everything that America stands for. Religion is a personal, subjective affair for the individual; politics and public policy is an impersonal, objective affair for everyone. (See my post "Does the Holy Spirit Vote Republican?")

6) Too invasive of others personally. We Christians are too often too eager to get up into the faces of others about their personal religious beliefs. If you believe in the reality of hell, then wanting to save non-Christians from going there is a worthy sentiment, of course. But the bottom line is it's absolutely impossible to talk someone who isn't a Christian into becoming one; in fact, more than anything else it's likely to push the non-Christian further from God. I believe we Christians would do very well indeed to spend our time "just" living as Christians, and let God worry about the non-Christians. (See my post "What Non-Christians Want Christians to Hear.")

7) Too quick to abandon logic. When talking to others about our faith, we Christians too often resort to a language and line of reasoning that leaves good ol' fashion logic sitting on the ground behind us, waving a sad good-bye. "It's true because the Bible says it's true" is, for instance, an assertion that can't help but leave the non-Christian unimpressed, since it's so manifestly illogical. "It's true because the Bible says it's true" is no more proof of truth than is, "Apples are the best of the fruits, because I think that's true." Christians need to more readily admit that the religious experience -- no matter how riveting and real it is to the person experiencing it -- remains a subjective phenomenon, and talk about it that way. (See my "Let's Be Real: No One 'Walks' and 'Talks' with Jesus.")

8) Too fixated on homosexuality. Can we Christians stop already with the gay and lesbian fixation? I know many of us understand our stance on the matter to be unassailably Biblical. I know a great many of us are deeply concerned about the "homosexual agenda." I know. We all know. Maybe Christians could just give that issue a rest for a while. It's not like gay and lesbian people are going anywhere. They'll all be there when we get back. Maybe -- for just a week, a day, a month -- we could concern ourselves with something else, and let them be. (See my post "Christians: When It Comes to Homosexuality, Man Up.")

9) Too insular. When I became a Christian, one of the things that most amazed me about Christians is the degree to which they tend to hang out only with other Christians. We should stop doing that. How are we supposed to share Christ's love with non-Christians (which we're forever saying we want to do) when we barely know any non-Christians? Time to widen that social base, I say. (Plus, Christian or not, we still want to throw good, fun parties, don't we? Well, let's face it: The heathen class has all the good music. We might as well invite a few of them to our next party. Maybe they'll bring their CD's!) (See my post, "My Answer to Christians Denouncing R. Crumb's "Genesis Illustrated.")

10) Too uneducated about Christianity. Generally speaking (which of course is the most offensive way to speak about any group of people), Christians tend to embarrass themselves by knowing so little about either the Bible or the history of Christianity. Believing that the Bible is the word of God, for instance, is one thing; knowing nothing about the long process by which men decided which texts would and wouldn't make it into the Bible is another. It's not that all Christians should be full-on theologians or historians. But if you're a Christian who doesn't know the Great Schism from The Great Santini, or the Diet of Worms from ... well, the diet of worms, then you've got some homework to do.

Leviticus Loses: The Inevitability of Equal Rights for Homosexuals

by Rabbi Irwin Kula 

Posted:      April 30, 2010 02:37 PM

This past week in synagogues throughout the world, the weekly portion of Scripture included the following verse from the book of Leviticus: "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination." This proscription has obviously been the source of heated and often vicious debate over the past decades as homosexuals have courageously come out of the closet and forced our culture to wrestle with its full humanity. My colleague Rabbi Brad Hirschfield posted an important and nuanced post on Huffington Post -- "Is Homosexuality an Abomination? Wrestling with Leviticus 18:22" -- suggesting that because this cultural change in attitude towards homosexuals is very complex, the debate would be far more productive if people hid less behind Scripture and ideology and focused more on why this particular issue is so important to them personally. In Rabbi Hirschfield's words, "compassion for an idea is hard to generate, but compassion for a real person is less so."

It strikes me that the way human rights issues have played out since the beginning of modernity -- which, not surprisingly, coincides with the separation of church and state -- should give us all reason to take a deep breath. There is a sort of humbling inevitability to the process of inclusion and to where we place ourselves along the continuum of human rights debate. One of the many ways to characterize the modern experience is the ongoing expansion of human rights and the increasing inclusion of marginal populations. The modern political and social dynamic in both general society and within religious communities has been the same: Marginal classes of people are brought inside legal frameworks and given equal rights. Whether recognizing the full humanity of Jews, African Americans, other ethnic and religious groups, women, the physically challenged, and now homosexuals, the process has been the same. First, a small group within the marginal group realizes they are in fact oppressed, that in profoundly unjust ways they are not treated as full human beings equal before the law. This small group begins to "cry" out for freedom. The initial reaction within the marginal group is usually fear of rocking the boat while the reaction of the dominant class is dismissive if not often brutal. But injustice once realized and freedom once tasted, even if only in one's heart and mind, is very hard to put back into a box, and so a process begins within the marginal class, educating its own people to see their plight and organizing increasing numbers of people ready to fight for inclusion and fairness. At some point very small numbers of people from the dominant class begin to see the light and realize that fellow human beings just like them have been denied equal rights simply because they are different. If the modern period is of any evidence, once this movement perceived as one of human rights begins -- though it may entail great struggle, sacrifice, and bitterness -- it inexorably results in the marginal population being given the same legal rights as the majority population. So America of 2010 is far more inclusive than America of 1810; classes of people denied equal rights and barely seen as human in 1810 have gained their rights by 2010.

It turns out that once the thirst for freedom is felt, the only question is pacing, and this is true in the general society as well as within religious communities, who all go through the same fighting process. Sadly, though, religious communities, even the liberals in those communities, tend to be on a time lag relative to the larger secular body politic. Depending on our psycho-spiritual and psychosocial predispositions and the values of the groups to which we feel most connected, we individually and collectively pace ourselves in one of three ways. Some of us, the traditionalists, hold on for dear life and oppose any change; others, the human rights activists, make great sacrifices to bring about change; and still others, the rest of us, are in the middle, slowly brought along to see the humanity of the Other. These three paces are of course all relative to each other, so as inclusion and equal rights expand, passions intensify.

For some, usually those most denied their rights, change understandably moves too slowly, whereas for others it moves too quickly, and for most of us it sometimes moves too quickly and sometimes too slowly. Of course, whatever our pace, we dress up our positions in either religious language or the secular language of grand principles like justice, fairness, and equality, as if it is not precisely the content of those principles that we are debating. At some point, as people meet each other and realize that the Other is a human being whose difference is nothing to fear, a critical mass, usually a healthy minority and not yet the majority, pushes through the change, which drives the remnant of traditionalists crazy. So traditionalists do have much to "fear" as their variety of arguments against inclusion -- the same arguments that they have brought on every human rights issue (e.g., it is not natural, it will lead to moral corruption, it is sinful, it is against god's will, it will undo the family, it will destroy the fabric of society, etc.) -- will increasingly ring hollow to more and more people. They may be able to slow things down, but they cannot stop these changes no matter what the Bible says. Thank God.

Given that we all know how (if not exactly when) this story of equal rights and full inclusion for homosexuals is going to end, the really interesting question is who we are in this drama. Where do we position ourselves and why? After all, we position ourselves where we do because it works for us, giving us just the right psychic gratification -- whether from our anger, self-righteousness, righteous indignation, or aloofness, and whether we are leaders or followers or stand above critics. Social, cultural, and moral change is hard, and in my experience, when I get a bit too angry at the pace of someone else's capacity for "moral development," or when I get a bit too self-righteous about how morally developed I am relative to those "homophobes," it is because I am actually unconsciously disappointed in my own efforts in working to make this a more just society.

Gays and lesbians (and bisexuals and transsexuals) are going to gain every single right that heterosexuals have: the right to visit their lovers, partners, or spouses in a hospital; the right to share in pensions, health insurance, and inheritance benefits; the right to marry; and the right to adopt. This is just how it is when people begin to see the Other as fully human, and it will even be so in the vast majority of religious communities -- after all, who would have thought that the majority of the most religiously traditional communities would allow inter-racial marriage?

Knowing all this ought not keep social justice activists (sorry, Glenn Beck) from doggedly pursuing equal rights for homosexuals. But it ought to make us feel just a bit less anxious and therefore a bit less angry with traditionalists. Knowing that as long as we continue to fight for the recognition of the humanity of the Other, such recognition will ultimately be won, we might even be a little less triumphant as we win.

Anyway, at some point in the next decades, the vast majority of us will see this as the obvious moral position; will see those views of a previous era as less morally and ethically evolved; and we will feel appropriately embarrassed, if not ashamed, of those days. Given this, it behooves us to remember that the only difference between human rights activists and traditionalists, relatively speaking to the centuries of injustice finally being ameliorated, is having realized something just a bit earlier -- something that the god of Leviticus should have learned from the god of Genesis -- that all human beings are created equal in the divine image.

Problem Solving EFT Ho'oponopono Guided Meditation

Ho'Oponopono is the ancient Hawaiian art of forgiveness, loving and personal accountability. Since I was introduced to this I use it several times each week to close my day. On a whim, I used it for meditation with some of the adolescent male therapy groups I facilitate. To my great surprise they loved it, and ask for it over and over. It has become a bonding process between all of us, and a process to see All as One.... to engender empathy and create a fresh beginning for a new day.

(The breathing directions are about using EFT techniques and breathing with it, which further enhance the depth of the meditation.)

Obama to Win Landslide Election in 2012

April 22, 2010 by William K. Wolfrum 

It’s April 20, 2010, and let me call it now – President Barack Obama will easily win re-election in 2012. Any discussion you hear about the 2012 presidential election is just a way to wile away the hours between the next Lindsay Lohan and/or Kim Kardashian news.

There’s three indisputable reasons to call this race so early:

1) The economy will be better in 2011 than it is now.

It’s almost impossible not to improve the economy after eight years of George W. Bush’s mad and often confusing slay-the-beast onslaught. It was as if the kids from “Jersey Shore” were running the place. It was a situation.

Basically, if unemployment numbers are less than 9%, or Joe Biden doesn’t accidentally lose all our money, it’s a non-issue.

2) Obama’s re-election campaign will be a shock & awe effort of the likes the political world has ever seen:

Imagine combining the Super Bowl and Carnival, then firing off repeated gold-plated orgasm flairs. That’s going to be every day for 18 months of the Obama campaign. They may do the whole thing in 3-D and have Kathryn Bigelow direct. And that was their first one. The first one will look like a Jr. High pep rally compared to the bombardment of sense and emotions about to be released on the U.S.

3) All the GOP has to run against him are Republicans:

While ranked third, this really is the icing on the cake. The Republicans have not one person who could beat Barack Obama. Not one. The closest thing to a winnable candidate they have is Meghan McCain. Trust me, poll it. Unfortunately, she’s like 19 or something, so she’s out.

As for Sarah Palin, she’ll sooner co-star in a “Very Special Episode of Alf,” (where she’ll frag Alf from a helicopter) before she’ll be considered a serious Presidential candidateby “Real America.”

Newt Gingrich? Bring it. Just bring it.

Mitt Romney? Mitt Romney wouldn’t vote for Mitt Romney.

Scott Brown would be the most attractive candidate, but Tea Partiers will never forgive him for occasionally voting like a human, and he seems far more astute than to commit political suicide at the start of a promising career.

Even Mike Huckabee has to be sick of Mike Huckabee.

Seriously, they have nobody. And the “Policy of Hell No” won’t exactly be winning fans after some voters have already benefited from the health care reform law.

I suppose it is possible a surprise candidate will stun us all and present a real challenge to Obama. Except that I just wrote that to cover my bases; and trust me, there’s no one. The GOP would be best off giving Bob Dole or Walter Mondale their nomination. At least we know they can handle it.

So let me call it now and beat the rush: Obama wins the 2012 presidential election by a landslide over a horrifyingly inept Republican candidate. I guarantee it.

And I guarantee this, as well: The mainstream political talkers will spend a great deal of time discussing how the “Tea Party” somehow made a difference.

PS: Just to come off as slightly topical, let me add my prediction for the 2010 Congress races. About 93 percent of incumbents will keep their jobs.

More Malarkey About Health Care

The REAL facts from FactCheck.org and the Annenberg Public Policy Center!!!!!!

The legislative debate is over, but the false and exaggerated claims just keep on coming.

April 19, 2010

Summary

We’ve seldom seen a piece of legislation so widely misrepresented, and misunderstood, as the new health care law. We stopped counting the number of articles and items we turned out on the subject after the total reached 100.

Some of that is understandable. The debate went on for more than a year, while the different House and Senate bills changed their shape constantly.  The final law was the product of an awkward two-step legislative dance that first enacted the Senate’s version, then quickly amended it with a reconciliation "fix." No wonder people are confused.

And even now the misrepresentations continue. The new law is no longer a moving target, but some opponents persist in making false or exaggerated claims about it. Our inboxes are filled with messages asking about assertions that the new law:

• Requires patients to be implanted with microchips. (No, it doesn’t.)
• Cuts benefits for military families and retirees. (No. The TRICARE program isn’t affected.)
• Exempts Muslims from the requirement to obtain coverage. (Not specifically. It does have a religious exemption, but that is intended for Old Order Amish.)
• Allows insurance companies to continue denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions. (Insurance companies have agreed not to exploit a loophole that might have allowed this.)
• Will require 16,500 armed IRS agents to enforce. (No. Criminal penalties are waived.)
• Gives President Obama a Nazi-like "private army." (No. It provides a reserve corps of doctors and other health workers for emergencies.)
• "Exempts" House and Senate members. (No. Their coverage may not be as good as before, in fact.)
• Covers erectile-dysfunction drugs for sex offenders. (Just as it was before the new law, those no longer in jail can buy any insurance plan they choose.)
• Provides federal funding for abortions. (Not directly. But neither side in the abortion debate is happy with the law.)

For details on these claims about the new law, please read our Analysis section.

Analysis

As opponents pointed out during debate, the House and Senate health care bills were very long and complicated documents. They also changed several times, making it difficult even for those who had read (or written) the bills to keep up with what was in them. This was a perfect breeding ground for wild rumors. We picked off a lot of them while the bills were still under consideration, but now that the legislation has been signed into law, we’d like to start cleaning up the rest.

Will the law require all patients to be implanted with microchips?

No. Nothing like this appears in the new law, or in any of the bills that Congress considered. This claim stems from a wild misinterpretation of a provision in the original House leadership’s bill (H.R. 3200) that did not require implantation of anything, and that was, in any case, not part of the final legislation. The part of the original House leadership’s bill that’s usually referenced to support this rather paranoid claim actually would have set up a registry for class III medical devices and class II devices that are "implantable, life-supporting, or life-sustaining." The Federal Drug Administration’s classifications determine how much oversight and regulation the device has — class III devices (such as, for example, replacement heart valves or artificial hips) need pre-market FDA approval; class I devices (like x-ray film or tongue depressors) need only general quality controls. Class II devices, which need to meet performance standards but don’t need pre-market approval, cover a wide range — blood pressure cuffs are class II, but so are cerebral shunts. That’s why the bill specified implantable, life-supporting and life-sustaining devices.

But the bill did not mandate implantable devices of any kind, least of all microchips. Rather, it said that implantable devices will be registered so that physicians can access data about safety and effectiveness in a way that "protects patient privacy and proprietary information." And again, it didn’t become law.

Is TRICARE coverage for military families and retirees affected?

No. Some early scuttlebutt spread by chain e-mails claimed that the House bill would reduce benefits for TRICARE, but we were among the many debunking that false report. See "Health Care Overhaul and TRICARE." And as things have turned out, there’s nothing like that in the new law. Dr. Charles Rice, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, has said that the beneficiaries will not see any change as a result of the new legislation: "For the Department of Defense, and specifically for our 9.6 million TRICARE beneficiaries, this law will not affect the TRICARE benefit. Eligibility, covered benefits, copayments and all other features of our TRICARE program remain in place.” TheDepartment of Defense TRICARE site says the same thing: "This law will not affect the TRICARE benefit. Eligibility, covered benefits, copayments and all other features of our TRICARE program remain."

Will the Amish, Muslims and other religious groups be exempt from the coverage requirement?

Some Amish may. It’s unlikely that other groups will. We’re still checking out this rumor, but the versions we’ve seen are likely overblown. The law does say that some religious groups may be considered exempt from the requirement to have health insurance, and it uses the definition from 26 U.S. Code section 1402(g)(1), which defines the religious groups considered exempt from Social Security payroll taxes. Eligible sects must forbid any payout in the event of death, disability, old age or retirement, including Social Security and Medicare. They must also be approved by the Commissioner for Social Security. The law was originally designed to apply to the Old Order Amish, and we have yet to find any cases in which members of other religious groups were successfully able to claim exemption.

The Social Security bureaucracy has been slow to respond to our queries about which religious groups have been granted exemptions from the payroll tax. But both the federal government and the courts have been very strict on such exemptions in the past. For instance, in 1982 the Supreme Court found that a member of the Old Order Amish claiming exemption under 1402(g) was in fact subject to payroll tax for his employees. That section, the Court said, is applicable only to the self-employed. And in two caseswhere self-employed individuals claimed a religious opposition to Social Security but weren’t members of approved sects, they were also ordered to pay the tax.

The Christian Science Church, a religious group with restrictions on health care use, hasstated publicly that members will be subject to the insurance requirement.

Will the law allow insurers to continue denying coverage to children with preexisting conditions?

In theory, maybe, but the president of America’s Health Insurance Plans has said they will not do so. The health care law was supposed to forbid insurers from denying coverage for children’s preexisting conditions, starting in 2010 (four years before a similar provision kicks in for everyone else). Democrats pushed this as a major selling point of the bill, but it was called into question just a few days after the law’s enactment when insurance companies said that vague language allowed them to continue denying coverage. Previously, insurers might grant coverage to an uninsurable family if a child had a preexisting condition, but exclude that condition from coverage — that is, the insurance companies wouldn’t pay any costs associated with the condition. The new law forbids them from doing so. But, the insurance companies argued, it does not forbid them from denying coverage outright to the entire family.

However, on March 29, the president of AHIP, the insurers’ lobbying group, wrote a letterto Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius promising that insurance companies would follow the spirit of the law. "Health plans recognize the significant hardship that a family faces when they are unable to obtain coverage for a child with a pre-existing condition," AHIP President Karen Ignani wrote. "With respect to the provisions related to coverage for children, we await and will fully comply with regulations consistent with the principles described in your letter."

Does the law provide for armed IRS agents to enforce penalties?

No. This is a fantasy. GOP lawmakers claim the law might require “as many as 16,500” new jobs in the IRS, a figure inflated by dubious assumptions. But the agency’s role will be mainly to hand out tax credits, not to enforce penalties. And the IRS won’t be sending armed agents to enforce the health care mandate, as falsely claimed by Texas GOP Rep. Ron Paul. The law specifically waives any criminal penalties for those who both decline to obtain insurance coverage and refuse to pay the tax enacted to penalize lack of coverage. For more on this subject, see our Ask FactCheck “IRS Expansion."

Does the law set up a "private army" for Obama?

No. The health care law establishes a Ready Reserve Corps of doctors and other health care workers who can be called upon in the case of a public health emergency. E-mails that call them "Hitler youth" and speculate that they may be administering "lethal injections" are thoroughly false and malicious. For more on this subject, see our Ask FactCheck "Obama’s Private Army."

Are members of Congress and their staffs "exempt" from the law?

No. House and Senate members must obtain coverage just like everybody else — and the new law may give them more limited choices than they have now. The notion that they would somehow be "exempt" is a twisted idea pushed by some conservatives who opposed the creation of exchanges through which individuals could buy coverage and claimed that everyone except Congress would be forced into the exchange plans. Others opposed creating a new government-run "public option" insurance plan, and claimed (falsely) that most non-lawmakers would be herded into that, while members of Congress continued to get their coverage through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, which also covers 8 million federal workers, retirees and family members. But the "public option" isn’t even part of the new law. Meanwhile, Congress adopted a Republican amendment that takes House and Senate members and their staff workers out of the FEHB, and forces them to obtain coverage through the new state-run insurance exchanges that will be set up in 2014. In the exchanges, private insurance companies will compete for the business of millions of currently uninsured Americans, those who already buy their own coverage and many small-business owners. These exchanges are modeled on the FEHB, and could turn out to offer a more limited selection of policies. That remains to be seen. For more details, see our Ask FactCheck, "Congress Exempt from Health Bill?"

Lately, the debate has shifted to whether some congressional staffers are "exempt" from this Republican-sponsored requirement to get coverage from state exchanges, which is another matter. The law defines congressional “staff” as “full-time and part-time employees employed by the official office of a Member of Congress, whether in Washington, DC or outside of Washington, DC.” That language comes from an amendment to the Senate HELP committee bill written by Republican Tom Coburn, who now says that his own definition is too narrow. Coburn and others argue that this definition excludes committee and leadership staff, including those working for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The Congressional Research Service agrees that this is possible. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s spokesman told Politico that the provision does apply to leadership staff, but not committee staff. So some Capitol Hill staff workers may still continue to get coverage the same way they always have.

Does the new law cover Viagra for convicted sex offenders?

There’s no change from current law. Convicts who are not in prison can purchase whatever health plan they’d like and some plans could cover erectile-dysfunction drugs. The Congressional Research Service said that there was nothing in the new law that would "require health plans to limit the type of benefits that can be offered based on the plan beneficiary’s prior criminal convictions."

This mini-controversy erupted when Republicans introduced a string of amendments in a final effort to obstruct passage of the reconciliation bill. Republican Sen. Coburn of Oklahoma proposed the amendment to bar sex offenders from getting health plans that covered such drugs with federal money through the state-based exchanges. Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana called the amendment "a crass political stunt." And it failed by a 57-42 vote.

Does the law provide federal funding for abortions?

Not directly, and there are provisions in place to prevent it from doing so indirectly. There’s language in the law that says subsidies from the government can’t be used to pay for abortion services, except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother. It’s true that many women who now lack insurance might obtain private policies that cover wider abortion services as a result of the new legislation and with the help of federal subsidies. But insurance companies must keep any subsidy money they receive segregated from premium payments made by private individuals, and must use only private money to pay for abortion coverage. That doesn’t satisfy either side in the abortion debate. Anti-abortion groups are also concerned about increased federal funding for community health centers, but we’ve seen no evidence these centers perform abortions. For more on this subject, see our Ask FactCheck “The Abortion Issue."

– by Jess Henig

"Crossing A Spiritual Divide" by Deepak Chopra

Last December a poll revealed something encouraging about spirituality in America. When asked if they had ever had a religious or mystical experience, more responders said yes than no. This was a first in the 47 years that the Pew Research pollsters have been asking the question. (A religious or mystical experience was defined as “moment of sudden religious insight or awakening.”

In the New York Times column covering the results, the headline read, “Paranormal flexibility,” which may reflect common prejudice but is entirely misleading. Spiritual experience is normal. As a catch-all, “paranormal” covers fringe experiences like seeing ghosts and being abducted by aliens. For that reason, skeptics like to lump deeply meaningful religious awakening into the same basket. We would be better off leaving all loaded words out, including the words religious and mystical.

The other word in the headline, “flexibility,” is the valid and important one. Believing Christians report, in larger numbers than before, that they have absorbed aspects of Eastern and New Age thought. Whenever I hear that narrow dogma and second-hand belief systems are being replaced with more expanded awareness, I feel encouraged. Expanded awareness is the whole story. Without it, not just spiritual experience is closed off; so are the deepest aspects of love and personal insight.

Consciousness evolves. This isn’t a controversial statement, because we all accept that the awareness of a toddler is only the beginning of life’s journey, leading to the greater awareness of adulthood. What isn’t widely accepted yet is that evolution or personal growth — choose whatever term you will — becomes voluntary once a person reaches biological maturity. You must choose to grow into insight, wisdom, love, and compassion. Our brains can adapt to all these states. Experiments with Tibetan monks have proved that their brain functioning is different and more intense in the prefrontal cortex where higher thought is centered.

At the moment, such findings seem exotic, but they shouldn’t. Our remote ancestors didn’t speak complex languages (so far as anyone knows), do mathematical calculations, or delve into quantum physics, but as soon as modern humans wanted to pursue those areas of inquiry, the brain kept up and adapted to make math, physics, and every language in the world possible. The same is true of spiritual experience. If you want to have it and believe that higher consciousness is real, your brain will be able to allow the kinds of advanced spiritual experiences that traditionally belonged only to saints and sages.

I have never thought of saints as another species of human but rather as scouts into an unknown territory. The role of a scout is to show the way to others, not to ride back to camp and prevent anyone else to cross the frontier. Happily, we seem to have reached a spiritual divide. If more people are peering into the field of consciousness (that’s how I’d describe it without using loaded words like religious and mystical), then the field itself is opening up. As it opens, more and more seekers will venture in. The great thing is that in the future, and hopefully the near future, there will be much less confusion, struggle, and resistance about consciousness. No longer stuck in outworn religious assumptions, expanded awareness will become something unheard of in prior generations — it will become normal.