5 posts tagged “politics”
That's the title that Electronic Museum has bestowed upon the Creation Museum, which opens its doors to the public today.
I must say that I find its existence frustrating, fascinating, and frightening all at the same time. This place is a sort of alternative natural history museum. It cost about 27 million dollars to build and is run by Answers in Genesis, an organization that believes the Bible to be true from cover to cover. So this place presents exhibits on dinosaurs, fossils, geology, and other topics on the assumption that the planet is only about 6,000 years old. Evolution is one of the things they hope to debunk.
My frustration stems from my status as both a Christian and a person who is studying to be a museum professional. I don't believe that the world was created in six days. I don't believe that dinosaurs and human beings lived side by side (this museum has life-size models of them doing so, and they are serious). I don't believe that the Grand Canyon was cut in a short period of time by Noah's flood. But I do believe in God (ostensibly the same one that the Answers in Genesis folk do), and this museum is making news. The potential for it to be seen as representative of all Christian views bothers me. An article in the New York Times has already opined:
For the skeptic the wonder is at a strange universe shaped by elaborate arguments, strong convictions and intermittent invocations of scientific principle. For the believer, it seems, this museum provides a kind of relief: Finally the world is being shown as it really is, without the distortions of secularism and natural selection.
I'm not in search of "relief" from the assault of modern science. The writer could have sacrificed a bit of his prose in order to make a distinction between the entire Christian community and denominations affiliated with groups such as Answers in Genesis. Two very different things.
As a museum guy, I'm also bothered by the scholarship that will be on display at the Creation Museum. By their very nature, they are mounting exhibits that fly in the face of virtually any sort of sound scientific study. Answers in Genesis has close ties with Liberty University, the institution founded by the late Jerry Falwell. The school offers bachelors degrees (nothing higher) in chemistry and biology, but no other physical sciences. No physics, astronomy, or geology. Even biology sounds like a bit of a stretch to me; what would they teach without evolution? The point is that they cannot attract ANY scholars, let alone renowned ones, from most of the scientific fields that can back their claims on the age of the universe. Even if you're willing to grant that "evolution is just a theory," as Young Earthers so often say, science has gone down many other intellectual avenues to arrive at the conclusion that the universe is about thirteen billion years old. I'm sure that Liberty would be interested in running more graduate science programs, but I suspect that they know that no one with any serious aspirations of making a career as a geologist or a physicist would want a degree with the institution's name on it.
This is the company that museum keeps. The museum's site has a section addressing challenges to Young Earth Creationism, but it simply links to Answers in Genesis' pages dealing with various scientific subjects. I can't imagine what their exhibits will look like. What will their collection consist of? What are they going to be interpreting? There's a very good chance that this museum will just be an extension of the sermons that many fundamentalist Christians hear on Sunday.
But therein lies the fascination. There are definitely identity issues wrapped up in this. The Times reporter was correct in implying that these people don't have much to look forward to when visiting pretty much any other natural history museum. Darwin and the Big Bang will always be at the core of the message at these places. Where can they go to have their views affirmed? Cultural and intellectual access are huge heritage issues, but here is a group of people that is alienated from the natural history museum because of the very nature of the institution. If the money is there, shouldn't they be able to build their own museum espousing their own views on science?
In principle, the answer is yes, but there's a problem. Answers in Genesis has a highly political agenda, and this museum is a tool. Museums need to be places where discourse can take place. I'm not saying that they should shy away from controversy or politics; sometimes the shocking story is the one that needs to be told, or the one that has never been told. The audience ought to be challenged. But the Creation Museum will be forever bound to one viewpoint. Their is no room for discourse when there is no evidence to dispute.
I'm a person of faith, and I respect the right of people to believe whatever it is they want to believe. But I don't think that this place can be rightly said to be a natural history museum. It would be fine if it were devoted to the enthnographic study of people who believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old. There are plenty of meaningful things to be said about such a culture, but the truth is that the interpretation will not have been exposed to the same sort of academic rigor as the material in any other natural history museum in the world. They're selling the public short if that's the front they hope to present.
I think that this place will be a big hit among Young Earthers, which is fine, but I don't know if they'll be able to attract skeptical or even neutral audiences (especially when tickets are twenty bucks a pop). Maybe they don't want to (but if that's the case then I have another problem with them; museums should always be looking to relate to new and varied audiences). They may just continue to preach to the choir, and those people aren't going to be swayed by mainstream science any time soon.
I could go on but it's getting late. Even though I've done nothing but rail against the place, I really would like to go and see it. It seriously sounds like a case study in how not to design a museum no matter which aspect you choose to examine. Thanks for sticking around. I probably could have delivered the same message much more succinctly had I simply quoted this gem from the About page on the museum's website: "We’ll begin the Museum experience by showing that 'facts' don’t speak for themselves."
Here are some of tonight's hot web headlines, listed in descending order of import:
Gonzales to face confidence vote
Google takes search to next level
Halo 3 and Crackdown: What the Hell Happened?
Paris drops appeal, jail awaits
What a world.
I can sort of sympathize with the grandparents of the girl in this story about a substitute teacher who showed "Brokeback Mountain" to a class of 8th graders without seeking parental permission, but five hundred grand is an insane amount of money to be seeking. This law suit smacks of opportunism.
My sympathy stems from my belief in a rating system for films (perhaps not as it is currently applied, but I do think that there should be one) and not from personal objections to the content of "Brokeback Mountain." I haven't seen it, but I don't think that I would find it offensive. Even so, it does contain "sexuality" and nudity. Regardless of who is having sex with who, teachers should know better than to show films with scenes like this to kids. The girl in question is twelve years old, which is well below the age required to see R-rated films in the States and even below the levels that most other national film rating boards chose to grade "Brokeback Mountain." It shouldn't have happened. I remember when Mr. Laderach showed us "Saving Private Ryan" in my sophomore year of high school, and he insisted that we all bring in signed permission slips in order for us to view the film (which I had already seen). And anyone who didn't want to watch (or whose parents didn't want them to watch) had the choice of going to study hall instead. Very sensible.
But back to the money. I really don't understand the calculus behind the sums involved in law suits. Half a million dollars is an awful lot of cash for damage that hasn't physically impaired someone or robbed them of a loved one (even then I'm skeptical, it seems more like blood money to me). How traumatized could someone be from watching "Brokeback Mountain?" The grandparents also stated that the film went against their faith. So there's the obvious political angle. I wonder if they would be causing such a ruckus if the film had featured heterosexual sex between unwed teenagers. Or a man cheating on his wife with a younger woman. Both of these things are just as offensive to the brand of religion to which I assume these people ascribe. Would they have sued the Chicago Board of Education if their granddaughter had been shown "Say Anything?" Or "American Beauty?" They might have complained, and that would have been well within their rights. But the controversy behind "Brokeback Mountain" allows this to become high-profile, and the sky's the limit as far as the price tag is concerned.
Besides, why do these people think that it's a good idea to take FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS from a SCHOOL BOARD for something like this? All they're doing is stiffing the other kids in the school district. This isn't an insurance company or a drunk driver. The board is certainly liable for the actions of their employees, but this should be handled in-house. And what are they going to do with the cash anyway? If they do end up winning, it had better go to fund their granddaughter's college education or to some sort of Christian charity or something. What are they going to do with half a million dollars? Did the girl come home demanding that sum as one that would relieve her distress? Gimme a break.
When I graduated from St. John's (almost exactly one year ago, I can't believe it), Aunt Sue and Uncle Red sent me a book of daily readings and meditations compiled by the Iona Community. I was not familiar with them at the time. They are a group of incredibly ecumenical Christians based in Scotland (on the isle of Iona, no less) that focuses on communal living, prayer, and social justice. It's a pretty amazing blend of traditions, and they are quite progressive. I sort of go through the readings in fits and starts, but with all of the insanity of my last term at Cambridge I've really made an effort to read a bit of the book every day. The quotations, anecdotes, and reflections recorded in its pages, brief though they may be, have really changed my outlook as a person of faith.
Here's an especially strong passage that I read today:
JUSTICE AND PEACE
But does that mean politics?
It is a matter which is at the root of the spiritual, if the Incarnation is to have its central place in our thinking. Our spirituality is tested in how we handle the material. But does that mean politics?
The issue was clarified for me on the Howrah Bridge, Calcutta. A young man was running through the traffic, pulling a rickshaw in which two adults were seated. The sweat poured down his face and his bare feet slapped out a rhythm on the hot, dusty road. He was a beast of burden; our host said he would die at a young age. Elsewhere in Calcutta, poor people died on the pavements.
Many, many people in the world have no home, little food, no money, few clothes, no bed. They die of disease of malnutrition at an early age. The rickshaw wallah pounding the streets of Calcutta, pulling fellow human beings for a few rupees, must make God cry. Of course you "know" this intellectually; but it is different from seeing, feeling, smelling, touching. And when you look into the eyes of the poor, you become aware of your own complicity.
What to do? Living paralysed by guilt is no great help to the poor. Love demands nothing less than a re-ordering of the world's priorities: a new economic and political order. I can only glimpse what that might mean: a part of me is afraid to look any further at the implications. Justice is at the very heart of the faith, not an optional extra. And God's justice in the present situation is transformed into a word of prophetic judgment, whether we like it or not.
Charity is not enough. The work of Mother Teresa in caring for the dying is beautiful - but if nothing is done to change the overall arrangements of a world dominated by the "Christian" West, the poor will die in the gutters of the Calcuttas of the world for all time.
Prayer is not about turning one's back on all this. Thomas Merton, a Roman Catholic monk who went into a monastery to escape the world, found himself in the silence addressed by a God who cares about the oppressed. Reflecting on the Christian collusion with structures of injustice, Merton pointed out that the Pharisees knew how to arrange things in such a way that the poor would always be with them. We are challenged today to a deeper prayer and a tougher political analysis. If prayer is divorced from the hard-nosed politics of Christian love, it becomes self-indulgent, navel-gazing deep breathing. It will be an abomination to a free God who shouts, "Take this away from Me!" Politics on its own is not enough, either. If it is uprooted from the forgiving justice at the heart of God, it becomes hard, vengeful, unreformed and ultimately tyrannical.
Justice cannot be separated from peace, any more than prayer can be separated from action. The cost of fueling the arms race is one million dollars each minute of the day - and while this is going on millions die of malnutrition. The price tag of this kind of "peace" is too high and it is being paid in the blood of the poor.
- Ron Ferguson
Really heavy, and really powerful. Reading this stuff has moved me in ways that regular church-going rarely has. And their point isn't that this is better, or more important, but that one needs to compliment devotion with real-world application. What's the point if you don't? God obviously thinks that the real world is important; otherwise He wouldn't have created it. Too many people of faith (myself included) spend too much time worrying about their own dilemma, and what's coming next. Of course your own spiritual fulfillment is important, but a vital key to finding that sweetest of sustenance could be the realization that you're a part of a much wider set that is in at least as much turmoil as you. And if you're reading this on your own computer, a considerable percentage of that set is certainly under much worse material conditions. Doing something to change this might bring the spiritual satisfaction that no amount of inward or even immediate concentration could.
Of course I've heard this same basic message an untold number of times, but the context is hardly ever so convincing. Resident members of Iona are no joke. They live very simple communal lives, but they are not hermits. They host groups from the outside all year, leading them in workshops, prayer groups, and informations sessions. They donate a considerable amount of their income to the type of social action that they preach, and encourage members and supporters to go out and experience all of this first-hand. And they take anyone. Their membership knows no bounds, at least within the worldwide community of Christians. I'm sure they have no qualms with working with other groups of believers either. That would go against their ethos, which is based on justice for all of God's creation.
Sometimes I feel the same way about academia. A lot of people I've heard at seminars and conferences this year sound like they have no idea about anything that's happening in the real world. They've been cooped up in libraries for too long. Don't get me wrong; they finest (and the true) academics have been out in the field. They understand that theory needs to be married to practice in order for it to mean anything. But a lot of people get caught up in the ecstasy of discourse along the way and seem to have trouble finding their way to the other side. I'm not going on to a Ph.D course next year, and in some ways I do feel left out. At the same time, however, I'm excited to turn all of this schooling into more than just personal edification. If a doctorate is in the cards for me, it'll come somewhere down the road when my shoes have gathered a bit more dust. Some of the best graduate students I know are the ones who worked outside the academy for a while.
If I hadn't shackled myself to thousands of dollars of loan debt this year I might have considered getting involved with Iona on a very serious level. It's quite an inspiring organization. I definitely want to at least visit the island and see the community. It's in the Inner Hebrides, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Tons of Scottish/Celtic heritage tied up there too. The site of the ancient Iona Abbey (which is still in use; the Community has it as their base of operations) was where St. Columba founded his monastery 1500 years ago. Oh well. Here's hoping that I decide to actually make something out of all this.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I really can't afford to be one. The stuff that gets reported in the news is bad enough straight up; I don't need to juice it up with scary ideas. This isn't to say that I don't question what I hear in the media. I think that there's a difference between these two strategies. One assumes the worst in most every situation and actively dreams up possible lies, while the other is simply open to the possibility that there may be more that we don't know and may come to light at some point in the future.
Take the current situation in Iran. My friend Ben thinks that the Brits sent the sailors that are currently being held there into Iranian waters in order to instigate a shooting war (rather similar to the Gulf of Tonkin incident). I suppose the idea is that this will give the Brits an excuse to go into the country to shut down Iran's nuclear weapons program and get the sailors along the way, with the United States "pledging support" along the way. After Iraq, a preemptive strike would be a hugely unpopular move in the west. This might be the sort of justification that the public could accept.
I don't know if I buy this. I certainly don't want to. I don't think that Blair is so deep inside Bush's pocket that he would agree to make the UK a primary combatant in a ground war with a country that is developing nuclear weapons. It wouldn't be good for the Labour Party. There has been a lot of talk concerning Iran's role in supplying Iraqi insurgents with explosives and other equipment, and certain people would probably jump at the chance to bring the war across the border, but I can't see the UK making a move like this to incite war. And it's crazy to think that the sailors would do something like that. They aren't stupid people; they certainly would have known whether they were in Iranian waters or not. So if they did stray over the line then they would have done so willingly. Would they follow orders like that, putting themselves in extreme danger and knowingly causing an international incident of grave proportions? Maybe they would, I don't know, but it's very hard for me to stomach.
I know that the members of the American armed forces, at least, are very tired of this war. They do not want to be there anymore. There's already a legal battle over withdrawal from Iraq. Moving the conflict to Iran will only make it worse. Even the commanders' resolve has to be waining at this point. I can't imagine that the Brits would agree to go along with this. Their military commitment is fairly small compared to the current number of U.S. forces, and they've already set a date to significantly reduce those numbers within the next few months. They're almost out of this mess.
I could be wrong about this. Maybe the theorist are right. But I can't bring myself to believe this stuff without more evidence. I don't know too much about the situation, but it is possible that they weren't in Iranian waters and that this is all a misunderstanding. I'm going to hold out for that one for a while. Does that make me naive? Perhaps.
