[link|http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/011012/opinion/12john.htm|John Leo takes umbrage with clerical multicultural squishiness]

Excerpt:

The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church has issued an unusually disgraceful statement on the terrorist attacks. After urging believers to "wage reconciliation" (i.e., not war), the bishops said: "The affluence of nations such as our own stands in stark contrast to other parts of the world wracked by the crushing poverty which causes the death of 6,000 children in the course of a morning." The number 6,000 and the reference to a single morning, of course, are meant to evoke September 11 in a spirit of moral equivalence. In plain English, the bishops seem to think Americans are in no position to complain about the Manhattan massacre since 6,000 poor children around the world can die in a single day. The good bishops are apparently willing to tolerate 6,000 murders because the West has failed to eliminate world poverty, and perhaps should be blamed for causing it. But the terrorist attack has nothing to do with hunger or disease. And the bishops' statement is a moral mess. How many murders can Episcopalians overlook because of the existence of crushing poverty? If 6,000, why not 60,000?

This is a minor example of what could become a major problem. A large number of our cultural and moral leaders are unable to say plainly that evil exists and must be confronted. Instead they babble about "cycles of violence" and how "an eye for an eye makes the world blind," as if the cop who stops the violent criminal is somehow guilty of a crime, too.


I say:

There are a lot of yammerers who claim that all this intolerance on the part of religious types gives religion a bad name. But when organized religion falls over itself to show how tolerant it really is, what is the reward? Does it somehow make the churches die off more slowly?

And what exactly is the point of a religion whose doctrine is determined by opinion polls? What's it good for? A mirror for a narcissistic society to admire itself in? The only reason an oaf such as Falwell is still around is that the competition is even more pathetic.

1. What do you do with the followers once you've got `em?
2. Does leadership consist of more than trying to see where people are going and get in front?
3. Which is worst: taking an unpopular stance because you beleive it is correct, taking an incorrect stance because it's popular, or taking an incorrect and unpopular stance under the mistaken impression that it's popular?
4. Has the organization become an end to itself?