Now, let me say that I don't think religion is inherently a bad thing, and I don't find fault with people who find strength in it. I certainly don't think it's a bad thing to set aside a place for non-mandatory services for the athletes whose job scheduled pretty much preclude a normal in-season worship routine.
However I am going to find fault with this:
The players not only pray, but they also discuss personal matters -- marital tension, addiction issues, family illnesses, financial stress -- drawing sometimes surprising lessons. [Ryan] Church was concerned because his former girlfriend was Jewish. He turned to [chaplain Jon] Moeller, "I said, like, Jewish people, they don't believe in Jesus. Does that mean they're doomed? Jon nodded, like, that's what it meant. My ex-girlfriend! I was like, man, if they only knew. Other religions don't know any better. It's up to us to spread the word."Yes, Mr. Aptly-Named, you were blessed with a monopoly on religious truth. All the beauty, inner peace, strength, and grace afforded by other faiths is crap and the vast billions of this ignorant world need the pearls of wisdom you dispense, if only they could reach up to your perch upon your high horse. And aren't you glad you dumped her, Mr. Church? You'd hate to be lying down with the infidel.
Now I know this is a news piece, and Church didn't go seeking attention, preaching from dugout roof or anything. So I'm being unfair by holding him up as an example of an attitude I despise, without any specific actions to criticize. Well, too bad, I feel like sounding off: Shut up, live your faith, judge not lest ye be judged, and play baseball. It's the sheer condescension in his statement above (and in the chaplain's attitude) that really cheeses me off.
That, and the fact that despite my relatively high opinion of Church as a ballplayer, he still couldn't hold these guys' jocks. But, you know, if only they knew.
9 comments:
I found your blog via WashingtonPost.com--thanks for your post. I don't know Mr. Church or Mr. Moeller, but I do know that what the article states (including Church's quote) is only what the Bible teaches. Jesus made exclusive claims--dare I say intolerant claims?--of being the only way to heaven and the only true God. I don't know if you're a theist or not, but Church didn't claim that his ex-girlfriend would not have beauty, inner peace, strength or grace--virtues available all over the place. In fact, as you said, lots of faiths and groups offer them. (It seems everybody offers them to people nowadays.) Other faiths may afford their constituents those virtues, but will it get them to heaven (i.e., if one even believes in heaven)? Church and Moeller would say no. Should it surprise us that there is only one way to heaven, if there such a place? I would say no. Should it surprise that if there is only one way to heaven, we get there only on the terms of the guy that runs heaven? Again, I would say no.
Mr. Church only said what the Bible says, and he didn't write the Bible. Perhaps the issue lies with the Bible's teachings on this subject. Hopefully this serves also to acquit Church so that you can keep rooting for him and the Nationals.
Thanks again for your words.
-ADAM
P.S. Consider "Judge not lest ye be judged," which comes from the Bible (Matthew 7:1) in light of words that Jesus said elsewhere, such as, "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment" (John 7:24).
My biggest problem with "Judge not lest ye be judged" is that people take it to mean "judge not." I judge you Adam Myers, as well as Church and Moeller and Stevis and everyone and everyhing I come across, because I was given 5 senses and a rational mind (likely through a Godless evolutionary process, if rational analysis of available data is to be believed) and choose to use them, rather than believe what I've been told to believe by 20 centuries' worth of often warmongering church leaders.
If believing a 20 century-old book leads to Mr. Church and Mr. Moeller to think less of people who don't believe that book, then Steve and I are certainly entitled to think less of Church and Moeller for believing that boook. And Steve has simply put forth that opinion. Like myself, Steve has chosen to believe in his observations of the world, and his rational processing of them, rather than blindly follow the teachings of a 20-century old volume of occasionally beautiful poetry.
I apologize for my short rant, but I really disliked your postscript moralizing. I've just about had it with you people and your monopoly on righteousness.
BRIAN
P.S. I like the pope. The pope smokes dope.
Hi, I found your post via iChat--is the guy above the Brian Wilhite of White Cloud Photography? If so, I believe he shot Mr. Church and Mr. Moeller's recent, somewhat premature, man-on-man wedding in California and so is hardly a disinterested party in these matters.
Hi, I found your blog through the link on the side of my blog, and I just wanted to say that I spit Coke out through my nose when I clicked the "grace" link and got Hank Greenberg.
Let me clarify: I'm not dissing Greenberg, I just didn't expect him after Buddha and the Dalai Lama and Gandhi.
Hi, I found this blog because I write it. Ok, enough wiseassery. :)
First let me note that the Nats weren't happy when they got called out on this. Moeller was told not to return:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/20/AR2005092002093.html
Church "issued" a backpeddling statement. I use quotes because I would deduce from the wording of the statement, in comparison to his speech patterns and opinions in the previous quote that started this, that a PR hack wrote it and it was shoved in front of him. I concede that's purely my own opinion, though.
The main problem I have with the "others are damned" attitude, which I didn't make clear at all in my main post, is that it leads to a viewing of others that is more than just elitish or arrogant or snobbish, like if I scoffed at those who were bad at math. It leads to a view that these others are less worthy--and if they're less worthy, perhaps they're not worth as much respect as you and yours. And if you don't have to show them respect, you don't have to pay attention to them. And if you don't have to pay attention to them, maybe they're not really there. Or maybe they're not even fully human. And if they're subhuman, why does it matter what you do to them? Way back at the first step you already established their fate. You might as well speed it along.
OK, no step in that chain is the inevitable, unavoidable, or necessary consequence of believing in the damnation of others. I don't mean to exploit the slipperly slope fallacy here. But it certainly seeds the mindset--and we have ample evidence that such atrocities can stem from fundamentalism of all stripes. Whereas I've yet to see a nerd call for the extermination of everyone who failed calculus.
Now, directly on point to some of the posts here...
--Actually, Adam, Mr. Church said what Mr. Moeller said, not what the Bible says. Jesus certainly didn't say Jews were damned; to say all non -Christians are damned is interpretation. After all, if you believe in the Trinity, Jesus and the Father are in some ineffable way one with the Holy Spirit, and "no one may come to the Father but through Me" is a tautology.
--Getting to heaven is only an issue for certain faiths (Christians obviously, Muslims I believe; I'm less clear on the concept in the Jewish faith). My religion professor at Hope taught it to me this way: the religion solves a certain spiritual problem. In Christianity, that problem is the taint of sin and resulting death; that is solved through the forgiveness and promise of everlasting life made possible by Jesus's sacrifce. But to many of the diverse faiths of the Indian subcontinent, the problem is how to break free of the endless cycle of rebirth and suffering; solutions tend to involve extinguishing of self and/or reunion with the spirit of the universe. A Boddhisattva could just as easily shake his head at a "saved" Christian, knowing that pour soul is doomed for another trip around the wheel unless that soul listens to what he (the Boddhisattva) has to say. These two mindsets would be hard-pressed to explain to each other, in terms that made sense to the other, why the hell they were doomed.
--Mike, you're right, that's a fairly jarring transition to Greenberg. One of these things is not like the others...I just felt obliged to work him in, rather than just tossing him off in the "wave great Jewish ballplayers to mock Church" line at the end of the post. Of course Shawn Green's a little out of place with Koufax and Greenberg there too, but he just popped to mind. Oh well.
-Stevis
P.S. Boddhisattva is the coolest word ever. Boddhisattva Boddhisattva Boddhisattva.
Brian,
I reread my posted comment, and couldn't find any monopoly-like claim to righteousness. If my post-script came off as moralizing, I apologize, but that was not my intent. I was only commenting on Stevis' use of the Bible in defense of his position, a use which in my opinion lacked context. I agree with you, Brian, in that it is impossible not to judge situations or persons. Because of that very fact, I quoted other words that Jesus said that bring to bear that fact, and then urging us to use right judgment and not subjective, nebulous standards. Again, sorry for the veneer of moralizing. I only mentioned it because context reigns supreme in full understanding.
ADAM
P.S. I don't have a webpage, but the link contains my email address. If you or anybody would enjoy a conversation on my thoughts on the 2000-year-old book I quoted from, please send me a message. I'd love to start a dialogue. In fact, I'd enjoy your scrutiny.
I apologize for my recently posted comment, if Stevis wants them to stop. I wrote the comment earlier, then left and posted it without reading his past comment. A thousand apologies...
I apologize for my recently posted comment, if Stevis wants them to stop. I wrote the comment earlier, then left and posted it without reading his past comment. A thousand apologies...
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