Buddha Doc on PBS

Yesterday a new PBS documentary about the Buddha was shown. Filmmaker David Grubin conveys the story of the life of Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) which is narrated by Richard Gere (a Buddhist and advocate of Tibet), which I feel is not only relevant for people interested in learning more about this monumentally influential figure in world history but also provides instructive insights addressing our times frought with turbulence, confusion, cultural diversity, and religious ambiguity.

The documentary features interviews with religious scholars on the Buddha and Buddhism as well as with practitioners and adherents of Buddhism (including a few monastic renunciants). Though a bit watered down for time's sake (and I do admit my prejudice as an extra-scrupulous perspective as a religious studies scholar), it's a great historical-cultural overview of the life of the Buddha and the origins of the great Eastern (and increasingly Western) spiritual tradition.

Watch the whole documentary online here.

Jesus in 3-D...

A new History Channel documentary claims to reveal the "real face of Jesus" by using the same computer technology that produced the big blue aliens in Avatar. Using the Shroud of Turin, a tattered piece of cloth that has the outline of a facial image that many people over the past century have suggested is that of Jesus of Nazareth, the documentarians have produced a three-dimensional moving image of a man based on the structure of the image on the Shroud.

Though I haven't yet watched the documentary, I plan to. Even though I'm doubtful about the Shroud of Turin actually being the burial-wrappings of Jesus, I'm actually interested in the subject matter mainly because of what I'll likely learn about the technology used to create a 3-D image of the man behind the Shroud. If nothing else, this documentary is sure to stimulate our imaginations.

Check out a Religion Dispatches article about the documentary.

Independent Documentary on Military Chaplains

In recent years there has been an ongoing debate depicted in many media outlets about religion in the military. The question has become: Are U.S. laws preventing soldiers from praying according to their own religious convictions? Or are military officials abusing their power and authority and violating the Constitution by trying to convert soldiers?

This debate indelibly involves millitary chaplains who are providing spiritual service and pastoral care to other soldiers. The question for chaplains is basically are laws preventing them from praying with soldiers according to their own faith tradition, or are chaplains misusing their authority by proselytizing and subverting the Constitution?

These issues and more are addressed in the new independent documentary called "Chaplains Under Fire," which gets behind the media headlines right to the quick of what military chaplains do and the intense church-state/religion-government tensions they actually face on a day-to-day basis.

Check out a review and get more info about the documentary here.

Read more at RNS.

Military Chaplain Influenced By Unity Teachings

Lysa Allman-Baldwin on Unity.org has recently published a blurb about an Army Chaplain by the name of Michael Beach who, as a Baptist minister, discovered Unity teachings online and became an advocate of Unity principles. He reports that, as a military chaplain, he's called to uphold religious freedom and support those who are in need of spiritual and emotional help. He says that, after reading about Unity and listening regularly to Unity.FM, he's even more able to stay spiritually centered and actually perform his chaplaincy duties even better.

Check out Baldwin's profile of Chaplain Beach at Unity.org.

The Hutaree Militia

Until the recent news stories broke covering the arrest of the nine members of the Hutaree Militia charged with "seditious conspiracy" (which has a maximum of life in prison, if convicted), I'd totally forgotten about this ultra-conservative, fundamentalist and militant form of Christianity. It seems that I've so surrounded myself in a progressive Christian bubble that, with the exception of the few news stories covered in the media wires I follow, I've been rather blind to these Christian-centric, extra-fervent militia groups.

For those who haven't been able to follow the media coverage, The Christian Soldiers of the Apocalypse (another name for the Hutaree) is an organization that believes that the end of history spoken of in Revelation and elsewhere in the Bible is imminently approaching, along with the appearance of the Anti-Christ who will be the inlet for Satan and the downfall of humanity. Thus, they, as well as all Christians, are obliged to know this and prepare by forming armies for Christ. This is part and parcel of a fear of all government and especially of what has been termed the New World Order, where all nations and peoples are united (and controlled) by a central command (which will eventually be the seat of the aforementioned Anti-Christ). Apparently, their rhetoric and preparation has caught the attention of the U.S. government, which is prepared to crack down this seditious conspiracy to overthrow the current government and establish a purely Christian system of governance, one which harkens back what they call the Colonial Christian Republic before the establishment of the U.S.A. (Source: www.hutaree.com)

This dangerously intolerant and divisive movement is not only an affront and radical distortion and misunderstanding of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the doctrines and values of the Church since the 1st century, but it's also a manifestation of the changing times we're living in. There have always been radicals (sometimes violent and hateful) on both sides of the spectrum, but it seems to have intensified lately due to the turbulent socio-political and economic situation. To me, this militant Christian movement is in the same categorical camp as militant fundamentalists in Islam or Hinduism or any other religion. Fundamentalism, as a reaction against the cultural changes and progression toward greater tolerance, diversity, pluralism, and equality, is grounded psychologically in fear and theologically in a misappropriation and misinterpretation of the inclusive and forbearing messages of the founders/leaders of the various religious traditions.

It's sad to see these violent and hateful movements develop and influence people toward intolerance of differing others, but the most we can do is to become more informed about the groups and issues, promote dialogue with religious and cultural others, and stand up to injustices, inequalities, and hatred wherever we experience them.

For an informative and thought-provoking essay on the Hutaree, apocalypticism, and fundamentalism see Chip Berlet's article at Religion Dispatches.

Above image from Religion Dispatches website.

1st Amendment Rights and Texas SBOE

As many know by now, this month the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) has voted on a variety of amendments to the state social studies educational curriculum. These amendments will severely mitigate the information Texas students will receive concerning the 1st Amendment rights and and the boundary between religion and government in the U.S.

Furthermore, since Texas is the one of the largest consumers of textbooks in the country, most publishers tend to shape the content in textbooks based on the curriculum standards set by Texas government. Thus, this misguided change in curriculum could potentially affect our children across the nation, not just in Texas. Urgent action is very much needed on this front.

Among the proposed changes to be made in the Texas curriculum, the SBOE voted to: 1) Remove Thomas Jefferson from the world history curriculum of Enlightenment thinkers and replace him with Christian thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin; 2) Require that students explore the right to bear arms as part of the 1st Amendment rights of free expression (but which is already covered in the 2nd Amendment); and 3) Eliminate an amendment that would require students to "examine the reasons the Founding Fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring government from promoting or disfavoring any particulary religion over all others. The amendment didn't pass because many on the SBOE thought it "historically inaccurate." (Source: Interfaith Alliance)

If you are concerned about 1st Amendment rights for the freedom of religion and the separation of religion and government, please take action by sending a letter to 3 major textbook publishers urging them to reject the Texas SBOE's curriculum changes. Let's act to make sure our children's educational curricula are based on historically backed evidence and not on any ideology.

Evolution Favoring Religion?

A recent post by Mark Vernon of Religion Dispatches traces some findings of David Sloan Wilson who is a biologist researching and suggesting that the so-called "selfish gene" proposed by evolutionary biologists of the past is a fallacy. Instead, Wilson's research has lead him to posit the idea that we haven't, as humans, evolved toward the ends and purposes only of the self but rather more toward the aims and benefit of the groups in which individuals live.

Although I haven't delved very deeply into the findings of Wilson, what he's suggesting is quite exciting to me. The notion that we are genetically geared toward doing what's best for the communities in which we work, play, love, live, etc. just makes sense to me from my own personal experience of the world but also from the perspective of evolutionary theory. That is, the maximum potential for survival and sustainability for individual organisms seems best when the larger group of relationships is taken care of primarily. This is because we are, as most if not all life-forms, social beings and thus need the safety, security, and social identity of the community in order for us to survive and prosper as individuals. In other words, the well-being of the group maximizes the well-being of the individual, and not necessarily the other way around.

This lines up quite nicely with the beliefs and practices of most world religions which emphasize the spiritual importance of the community. In Christianity, the Church as the Body of Christ is the community that mystically participates in the love of Christ, carries the good message of liberation from sin, suffering, and death into the world, and supports each other in spiritual growth and transformation through the Spirit of God dwelling in and among its members. Though some Christian denominations emphasize this aspect of community more than others, it was certainly part and parcel of Jesus' message of the Kingdom of God and has historically always been of central significance in the life of the Christian individual. Without the Church, the individual Christian is somehow unfulfilled in the sense that the community of Christ in the Spirit is an essential aspect of the identity and well-being of the Christian. Through the support, loving relationship, and teaching of truth of the Church, the individual Christian finds a home, a family, an identity that shapes their spiritual life. As Thomas Merton has stated in quoting John Donne, "No [hu]man is an island." Amen to that.

To read the whole article, check it out at Religion Dispatches here.