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A couple months ago I wrote and posted a “narrative creed” designed to foster a greater emphasis on ethics within the context of narrative faith. Last week I posted a “creed for community” written by guest author Joey Fuson. Today, I encountered an even more explicitly ethical (even political), and much more narrowly-focused, creed.
It’s called “A Christian Creed for Health-Care Reform”, produced by the Christian social justice magazine Sojourners. The online page containing the creed includes an invitation to sign it; apparently a copy is to be sent to Congress.
As one of God’s children, I believe that protecting the health of each human being is a profoundly important personal and communal responsibility for people of faith.
I believe God created each person in the divine image to be spiritually and physically healthy. I feel the pain of sickness and disease in our broken world (Genesis 1:27, Romans 8:22).
I believe life and healing are core tenets of the Christian life. Christ’s ministry included physical healing, and we are called to participate in God’s new creation as instruments of healing and redemption (Matthew 4:23, Luke 9:1-6; Mark 7:32-35, Acts 10:38). Our nation should strive to ensure all people have access to life-giving treatments and care.
I believe, as taught by the Hebrew prophets and Jesus, that the measure of a society is seen in how it treats the most vulnerable. The current discussion about health-care reform is important for the United States to move toward a more just system of providing care to all people (Isaiah 1:16-17, Jeremiah 7:5-7, Matthew 25:31-45).
I believe that all people have a moral obligation to tell the truth. To serve the common good of our entire nation, all parties debating reform should tell the truth and refrain from distorting facts or using fear-based messaging (Leviticus 19:11; Ephesians 4:14-15, 25; Proverbs 6:16-19).
I believe that Christians should seek to bring health and well-being (shalom) to the society into which God has placed us, for a healthy society benefits all members (Jeremiah 29:7).
I believe in a time when all will live long and healthy lives, from infancy to old age (Isaiah 65:20), and “mourning and crying and pain will be no more” (Revelation 21:4). My heart breaks for my brothers and sisters who watch their loved ones suffer, or who suffer themselves, because they cannot afford a trip to the doctor. I stand with them in their suffering.
I believe health-care reform must rest on a foundation of values that affirm each and every life as a sacred gift from the Creator (Genesis 2:7).
Amen.
My gut reaction is that the creed could be improved were the last paragraph (the one explicitly referencing “health-care reform”) removed, as it seems to overly particularlize the otherwise general tone of the statement. On the other hand, the last part does have the effect of emphasizing the creed’s contextual origin and nature, rather than making it into a “universally orthodox” statement of faith/ethics which it cannot hope to be (and which, I would argue, no creed can hope to be). So I suppose my feelings are mixed.
The statement as a whole, regardless, is an interesting one. It certainly contains a number of valid theological and ethical ideas that are relevant to the current health-care debates. However, the creed departs from the more or less standard conception of the purpose of a creed: rather than being intended as a formative statement for a particular community of faith, this “health-care creed” is explicitly designed to double as a “petition” and to be submitted to Congress as such!
Thus, this creed not only goes beyond the standard sort of content that historical creeds comprise, but also challenges traditional notions of what function creeds are supposed to serve and what sort of communities or organizations in which they are to be put to use. Arguably, it would be more appropriate to regard the present document not as a creed at all, properly speaking, but rather as a call to action that takes the form of a creed as a rhetorical strategy. Again, I have mixed feelings on the matter, though I would tend to regard it as a legitimate creed, albeit an unusual and perhaps boundary-pushing one.
I would be interested to know, first, whether other people regard this document as really being a creed, and second, whether or not other similar petitions-via-creed-rhetoric exist.
For some time, I have considered using the word ‘transarchy’ to describe my political philosophy: not anarchic properly speaking, but nonetheless quite anti-statist (though not necessarily anti-governmental). What follows is a document I drew up a while back that describes my ideology from a certain angle. But here’s a key disclaimer: it must absolutely be taken alongside what is said on the views page on this site. This post and that page are very different approaches to describing my attitudes towards government and society. But I don’t see them as contradictory — just as paradoxical, existing in tension with each other. Also, these different approaches represent the fact that in my own mind, many things are still being resolved, and many of my political tendencies do exist in a sort of tension.
Finally, it should be noted that what is described below is an ideal. It is something I aspire to, but something I can’t live up to particularly well. However, there are some groups, such as the Catholic Worker movement, the Amish, and intentional communities like the Simple Way, that embody exactly what I describe here.
PREAMBLE.
We the Transarchists embody an alternative to the structures of the State. Transarchy does not oppose them; rather, it outdoes them, providing an alternative identity to that of the cult of the State. Transarchy does not require withdrawal, nor the overthrow of the top-down structures of this mad world; transarchy is lived out in love rather than built up by force, and its alternative structure emerges naturally, bottom-up in the very midst of the nations.
ARTICLE I.
1. We reject violence, force, and war.
2. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” it is said, and peacemakers we will be.
3. To live transarchally, we embrace nonviolence, inherently subversive of the militarism of states.
4. Every act of peace is a pebble thrown into a pond – a pond filled with the polluted waters of hate, war, and violence. We shall throw pebbles into the pond until they pile towards the sky; the water shall drain away beneath; peace shall emerge.
ARTICLE II.
1. We reject the greed and the selfishness of extreme individualism.
2. We refuse to deprive others for our own gain. For some this entails a rejection of exploitative capitalism. For others it is merely a new practice of sharing without expectation of reward.
3. For this, some will call us communist; but ‘communist’ is derogative only because of those who forced it on others. We force it on no one. We live it.
4. However they occur, these new mutations of the ideal of loving community shall be turned towards the elimination of poverty and of suffering, in scales small and thus ultimately large.
ARTICLE III.
1. We reject the identity the State supplies us.
2. We are indifferent to its workings and its trappings, neither fighting against them nor obliging ourselves to accept them – we are subservient but not obedient.
3. We do not see citizens and noncitizens; we see only men, women, and children. We do not see persons domestic and foreign; we see only friends, neighbors, and good Samaritans.
4. We flee the cult of the State, forging instead post-national communities bound by common humanity.
THE ANTI-BILL-OF-RIGHTS
We the Transarchists are not concerned with what our rights are. We are concerned only with love, for from love emerge bonds that render rights meaningless. To love is transarchy.
No war, no greed, no State-worship; only love.
For years now a popular (and, thus, worn-out) meme has been the “governments explained through cows” gag. If, somehow, you haven’t seen it (if you were born yesterday, maybe?) you can read it here.
I bring this up because today one of my friends posted it to his Facebook page. As I reread the classic jokes, I realized the typical list of governments has some glaring omissions.
I have resolved to correct this sad fact. Thus:
- Imperialism/Colonialism: You move into a new neighborhood. You follow your divinely inspired Manifest Destiny and seize control of everyone’s cows. Then you make a lot of money from the milk.
- American Capitalism: Your cow stops producing milk because it is lazy. The government spends $700 billion dollars to purchase the cow from you. Maybe now it will produce milk.
- American Capitalism, round 2: You’re selling milk from your cow. Wal-Mart moves in with more cows. No one buys from your cow any more. You lose your job. And your house. And your cow. Then you get a job at Wal-Mart.
- Dystopianism: You don’t have any cows. Or rights.
- “Animal Farm”: You have some cows. They revolt and drive you away.
- Utopianism: We have a lot of cows. We get a lot of milk. We make a lot of ice cream. Repeat.
- Bush’s America: You have two cows. The government announces to the world that your cows are hiding weapons of mass destruction. America liberates your farm. There are no weapons of mass destruction, but at least now the cows are free.
- Obama’s America: You have a herd of cows. They’re on the wrong track. But there is HOPE that things can get better. Free-range we can believe in!
- Sarah Palin’s America: You betcha you’ve got cows! Now, let’s talk energy policy! *wink*
And these next aren’t really governments, but hey…
- Global Warming: You have two cows. They eat. They flatulate repeatedly. Environmental apocalypse ensues.
- Creationism: Whoa! Where’d that cow come from?
- Evolutionism: You have a cow. After drinking milk, you discover you have a dinosaur.
L. Gordon Crovitz, writing today in the Wall Street Journal, shared some interesting insights into the way our vast system of tubes is transforming our vast system of bureaucratic idiocy:
Web 2.0 has promising implications for those who think the best government is the one that governs least, especially outside basic functions like national defense and law enforcement. Can more direct participation by citizens in assessing policies limit government ambitions to what government can actually accomplish? Would citizen taxpayers put their collective faith in most spending programs? Or is there a risk that the wisdom of crowds as reflected in Web 2.0 won’t turn out to be so wise?
Democracy and governing are complex topics, but this makes it all the more important to apply technology as a solution. Government is the ultimate institution retaining the traditional top-down structure, technologically backward, with big decisions almost always made with incomplete information on what works and what doesn’t work. Here’s hoping that Web 2.0 can make government more effective by tapping information among officials and citizens, perhaps even finding a new consensus on where the wisdom of government begins and ends.
I like that last phrase: ‘Where the wisdom of government begins and ends.’ (Normally it just ends.)
The internet is increasingly the home of democracy – actually, to be more specific, of horizontalism. (This is where my anarchistic sympathies become evident.) People gather as equals, discuss issues, produce knowledge, and form opinions. The internet isn’t just shaping our world; to an increasing degree, the internet is our world. But it’s bigger. It has more liberty and more equality. It has less government, less centralization. It’s fostering a new frontier of ideas and institutions based on people, not on power.
The rise of the internet ties into another key aspect of my theory of society. Eventually, it will become evident that political models focusing on government as the world’s dominant type of institution are flawed, outdated. Government will always exist, because it’s necessary, and good. But the state will not, because it’s not necessary, and not inherently good.
Ideas, not parties. People, not nations.
That is the future.
Let us bond together to form a new party in American Politics, the Socialist Libertarians. We shall soon rise to prominence as the biggest emerging force the political landscape has seen in recent years.
We advocate:
1. “Welfare for All and Taxes for None!” We believe that no one should have to pay taxes. Taxes are theft. But hey, everyone can benefit from a little governmental help. So we extend our unequivocal support to all government programs that give us money. Welfare, Social Security, school vouchers, or just plain old free money—you name it, we want it.
2. To finance this revolutionary system, the government must print paper money. Lots of it. As much as is needed, in fact. And then give it to us. This money, instead of being backed by a gold or silver standard, will be backed by a standard of either good intentions or campaign promises. The former, being rare, shall be used if a “strong dollar” economic policy is enacted; the latter, being plentiful, shall be used if a “weak dollar” economic policy is preferred.
3. To offset the concomitant inflation, the government shall engage in widespread price-fixing. It shall finance enforcement of the fixed prices with more paper money. Again, as much as is needed. Throwing money at the problem will undoubtedly solve it.
4. We support war. Whenever possible. We will have good intentions in entering all of them. And we will have huge military spending, to protect our freedoms – freedom from taxes. We will finance these wars with paper money.
Our Symbols:
1.Our color is orange, reflecting our origins in socialism (whose color is red) and libertarianism (whose color is yellow).
2. Our mottos shall be the aforementioned “Welfare for All and Taxes for None” mantra, and also the wise axiom, “Have your cake and eat it too!” Though some have claimed that we misunderstand the purport of the latter phrase, we find it completely in line with our revolutionary ideas (as expressed by our other motto).
Utopian tales have a long tradition of literary popularity, going back to the genre’s namesake Utopia. But in more recent times the world of literature has been expanded by the logical opposite of the utopia: the dystopia, or “negative utopia.” Dystopian novels are the dark analogue of their utopian cousins. They depict civilizations where everything is dehumanized and horrific, and where humanity suffers from a lack of true freedom and liberty — all is the opposite of the blissful utopian dream.
Three of the most popular dystopian novels, and three of my favorite novels in general, are Orwell’s 1984, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Huxley’s Brave New World. But disturbingly, all three of these classic tales of the future have striking parallels in the world of today — contemporary forebodings of the novels’ nightmarish societies.
When one considers the omnipresent eye of Big Brother in 1984, or the hot flames of the firemen burning books in Fahrenheit 451, or the frightening intricacies of the structured civilization of Brave New World, the dark shadows of these terrible fictions loom in the mist of contemporary society. The books deliver powerful stories and powerful warnings, warnings that an enlightened populace would be best not to leave unheard. Indeed, it is the recognition of their relevance that has rendered dystopian novels such as these enduringly popular over the last century.
One might say that the novels promise doom and gloom, the perpetuation of a downward slope for humanity, and ultimate bondage rather than final liberty. But the true message of these classics is quite the opposite. By giving a warning, by exposing the dangers hidden in the world, dystopian works implicitly promise that mankind can avert this fate and work toward a brighter destiny. The very act of sounding the alarm presupposes that a rescue can be made.
That is the hope that these works offer — the idea that if society would just look at itself, honestly, realistically, it could fix the problems it sees. Some might argue cynically that humanity will never be honest about its own shortcomings, and that to expect civilization to be able to diagnose and improve is sheer madness. But Orwell, Bradbury, and Huxley would disagree.
And the continuing success of their novels suggest that maybe, just maybe, they are right.
