New Quaker Notebook

Bearer beware. Those "Choose Life" license plates may not be precisely what you think they are. Yesterday the AP picked up a news story in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger about two Catholic couples in Mississippi that were denied adoption through Bethany Christian Services, apparently because Catholicism conflicts with the agency's "Statement of Faith."[1] What's got everyone really riled up is that Bethany Christian Services, a nationwide organization based in Grand Rapids, MI, receives money from the sale of those "Choose Life" license plates.

A few things have to be sorted out here. Motorists in Mississippi pay $30 more to get this specialized tag, one of 185 plates that benefit a broad range of organizations in the state. Proceeds from the sale of the Choose Life plates first go to the nonprofit organization Choose Life of Mississippi; this agency then distributes funds to nonprofit organizations that have applied to receive the monies.[2] Any anti-abortion organization can apply for the funds by downloading a form from the group's web site at www.mschoose-life.org. In this case, Bethany Christian Services received $7,053 of the $244,000 generated by the sale of the license plates in 2004, although it isn't clear whether this was paid directly to the state organization (Bethany Christian Services of Mississippi) or to the national. In any case, although the $30 fee is passed administratively through the state, it is considered a private donation, so it really isn't a part of any public funds. Bethany Christian Services has 75 offices in 30 states, with three of those in Mississippi. Each office is independently incorporated and can be affiliated with various religions, said a spokesman at agency headquarters.[3] The group's Jackson office, where the Catholic couples were turned away, happens to be affiliated with the Presbyterian Church of America.

Here we have another example of the ongoing divide within the body of Christ. And Catholics aren't the only ones who could be shunned by Bethany Christian Services on the basis of their statement of faith. Although one Catholic couple's priest said that the faith statement did not conflict with Catholic teaching, maybe the priest didn't read the whole thing. There's a pretty clear statement of sola scriptura in the agency's faith declaration:

I believe that in all matters of faith and life, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the final authority. The Scriptures point us with full reliability to Jesus, God's Son. The Scriptures tell us that we receive forgiveness of sins by faith in Jesus Christ, and that God provides salvation by grace alone for those who repent and believe.[4]

By virtue of that statement, in addition to Roman Catholics, most Quakers would also be turned aside.[5]

In all fairness to Choose Life of Mississippi, the group also supports the Morning Star Pregnancy Care Center in Gulfport, an adoption and pregnancy resource center affiliated with the Catholic Diocese of Biloxi. That agency, which doesn't discriminate in any of its services, received $9,306 in 2004 from the sale of Choose Life license plates. Eleven states (Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Montana, Oklahoma, and South Dakota) sell the tag, although the Florida organization that started this, Choose Life, Inc., is currently active in 46 states.

1. AP, Washington Post, July 15, 2005. The state director for Bethany Christian Services said: "It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith.... Our practice to not accept applications from Catholics was an effort to be good stewards of an adoptive applicant's time, money and emotional energy."
2. According to Choose Life of Mississippi, you would pay $30 extra for your Choose Life tag; of that fee, $24 goes to the Choose Life Advisory Committee, $1 is given to the Mississippi Burn Center, $2 goes to the state highway fund, $2 is for county taxes, and $1 goes toward the administration of the distinctive tags.
3. Washington Post, July 15, 2005.
4. Bethany Christian Services' Statement of Faith.
5. Protestantism is often defined in terms of sola gratia (by grace alone), sola fide (justification by faith alone), and sola scriptura (by scripture alone), although the Reformation is distinguished by the "five solas"—sola scriptura (scripture alone is the standard); soli deo gloria (for the glory of God alone); solus christos (by Christ alone); solo gratia (by grace alone); and sola fide (justification by faith alone). One could probably read other "solas" into the Bethany Christian Services' statement of faith, but sola scriptura is enough to exclude at least Roman Catholics.

Still looking for a few good apples. In separate news stories this week we learn that the abuse at Abu Ghraib was not the result of a handful of bad apples, but that the torture techniques used there were in fact part of an arsenal of tactics that were approved for use earlier at Guantanamo. Said the Washington Post on Thursday:

The investigation at Guantanamo Bay looked into 26 allegations by FBI personnel that military interrogators had mistreated detainees. It found that almost all the tactics were "authorized" interrogation methods and by definition were not abusive.[1]

Such then was the bizarre defense before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday by Lt Gen Randall M. Schmidt of the Air Force, who declared that some of the practices criticized as illegal by the FBI were actually approved interrogation techniques—like stripping detainees, forcing them to wear women's underwear, wiping red ink on them and saying it's menstrual blood, using dogs to intimidate prisoners, leading an inmate around on a leash and forcing him to perform a series of dog tricks.[2]

Judge advocate generals (JAGs) for the Army, Air Force, and Marines said in the senate hearing that they had expressed their concerns about the Justice Department's definition of torture and how it would be applied to interrogations of enemy prisoners, as policy was being developed in 2003.[3] In a few cases, they said, modifications were made.

Sen John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen Lindsay O. Graham (R-SC), who chaired the Armed Services subcommittee hearing, "argued that perhaps Congress should legislate the definitions of enemy combatants and their official legal status, as well as the legal process for adjudicating their cases."[4] Perhaps, you say? Perhaps? You don't suppose that dragging the term "enemy combatant" into the sunlight of congressional debate might in the end restore valued human rights to individuals now being held incommunicado, without benefit of legal representation, living at the whim of interrogators who may use investigative tactics forbidden by Geneva Conventions?

Well, anyway, Congress may get too distracted to deal with that after learning about some hidden sex content in the popular video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." But not to worry: Joseph Lieberman and Hillary Rodham Clinton are hot on the case.[5]

1. This news story is archived at Truthout.org.
2. See New York Times, July 14, 2005. In addition, said the news story, Muhammad al-Qahtani, the so-called 20th hijacker in the 9/11 attacks, was kept apart from other prisoners at Gitmo for nearly six months, interrogated for up to 20 hours a day, was made to stand naked in front of female soldiers, forced to wear lingerie, forced to dance with a male interrogator, and had his copy of a Koran squatted on by an interrogator. '"It is clear from the report that detainee mistreatment was not simply the product of a few rogue military police on a night shift," said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's senior Democrat. "Rather, this mistreatment arose from the use of aggressive interrogation techniques."' Surely it is hard to see how editors at the Times could read their own story and still come up with the amazing headline "Report Discredits FBI Claims of Abuse at Guantanamo Bay."
3. Washington Post, July 15, 2005.
4. Washington Post, July 15, 2005.
5. See Reuters, July 15, 2005. "Two high-profile US senators, Joseph Lieberman and Hillary Rodham Clinton, are incensed over pornographic content 'hidden' in the popular video game 'Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,' and are demanding action from either the government or the game's maker."

A month of signatures. Now with 972 names affixed to the document, only 28 more signatures are needed to get the formal Letter of Complaint sent to the United Methodist Church (UMC) leadership in a move by concerned Methodists to discipline two of their more prominent members—George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. See my earliest blog on the United Methodists Calling for Accountable Leadership petition. You can also get further details about the project at TheyMustRepent.com.

If you know a member of the United Methodist Church, please direct their attention to this petition. Only 28 names are needed.

PBS chief says his goal is ideological balance

WASHINGTON - In testimony before a Senate subcommittee on Monday, the head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, told Congress that he seeks political balance in public-affairs programming and is not trying to silence "liberal" voices. Tomlinson has come under considerable criticism in recent months after complaining that the television show "Now with Bill Moyers" exhibited "left-wing bias." Moyers is no longer with the show.

Tomlinson, a Republican, has also come under fire for hiring GOP lobbyists and a consultant to monitor the political content of programs hosted by NPR's Diane Rehm and public broadcaster Tavis Smiley.

In testimony before Congress,Tomlinson dismissed charges that he is trying to turn public television into a forum for the Republican Party. "If you have a liberal show, have a conservative show. If you have a conservative show, have a liberal show," he said. "This is, to me, common sense, and it's good for public broadcasting." He took the opportunity during his subcommittee hearing to unveil the new PBS lineup of fall shows, including:

Good question: Where has all the money gone? The $204.6 billion the US government is going to spend in Iraq and Afghanistan [See costofwar.com] is really not your money or mine. This is true deficit spending. We don't have it to spend in the first place, so the money is actually borrowed from our children who will be left to pay it all back—that is, if they're not lined up at the draft board or civilian service offices or, worse, returning from overseas in flag-covered coffins. One would like to know how the money is being spent, especially since it takes away from other needed resources within the US and from many worthwhile nonmilitary endeavors around the world. I think it's sad that we have to go to offshore media to get the real news about what's going on in the Middle East, but here is a lengthy, well-documented look at what's been going on so far. Ed Harriman takes up the question "Where has all the money gone?" and in the July 7, 2005, issue of London Review of Books attempts to answer it as he follows the auditors into Iraq:

On 12 April 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority in Erbil in northern Iraq handed over $1.5 billion in cash to a local courier. The money, fresh $100 bills shrink-wrapped on pallets, which filled three Blackhawk helicopters, came from oil sales under the UN's Oil for Food Programme, and had been entrusted by the UN Security Council to the Americans to be spent on behalf of the Iraqi people. The CPA didn't properly check out the courier before handing over the cash, and, as a result, according to an audit report by the CPA's inspector general, 'there was an increased risk of the loss or theft of the cash.' Paul Bremer, the American pro-consul in Baghdad until June last year, kept a slush fund of nearly $600 million cash for which there is no paperwork: $200 million of this was kept in a room in one of Saddam's former palaces, and the US soldier in charge used to keep the key to the room in his backpack, which he left on his desk when he popped out for lunch. Again, this is Iraqi money, not US funds.

The 'reconstruction' of Iraq is the largest American-led occupation programme since the Marshall Plan. But there is a difference: the US government funded the Marshall Plan whereas Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer have made sure that the reconstruction of Iraq is paid for by the 'liberated' country, by the Iraqis themselves. There was $6 billion left over from the UN Oil for Food Programme, as well as sequestered and frozen assets, and revenue from resumed oil exports (at least $10 billion in the year following the invasion). Under Security Council Resolution 1483, passed on 22 May 2003, all of these funds were transferred into a new account held at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, called the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), so that they might be spent by the CPA 'in a transparent manner ... for the benefit of the Iraqi people.' Congress, it's true, voted to spend $18.4 billion of US taxpayers' money on the redevelopment of Iraq. But by 28 June last year, when Bremer left Baghdad two days early to avoid possible attack on the way to the airport, his CPA had spent up to $20 billion of Iraqi money, compared to $300 million of US funds.

[ READ MORE » ]

What corporation would Jesus invest in? In the July issue of Sojourner, in Robert Roth's "Living the Word" column, there is a July 31 lectionary reading that contrasts Jesus' feeding of 5,000 with the contemporary behavior of Wal-Mart. On the one hand, Jesus, with a mere 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, acted to make sure that all could eat;[1] when his disciples had finished distributing the food, "The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children" [Matt 14:21]. On the other hand, Wal-Mart, a publicly-traded company with $10.3 billion in profits for 2004 (up 16% from the previous year), seems not to pay its workers a "livable wage" or generous health insurance benefits.[2]

Wal-Mart is the evil corporation du jour. I don't mean to extol anything about the company, but only to point out that, because of its great size, policies, and global reach, it sits pretty as a prime-cut steak in the meat market of bad public opinion. Other companies admitted to the evil empire club in the past have been Union Carbide (Dow), General Electric, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble, among others; today it happens to be Wal-Mart's turn. When Christians are involved, they usually tend to dwell on values these companies should be espousing, and usually shut up when their targets get so flexible as to begin showing that they, too, can promote "Christian values." In this case, Wal-Mart isn't sharing enough of its profits with its employees and isn't taking care of them (such as through the distribution of health benefits) in the way a father might care for his child.[3]

I have a concern about this. The publicly-traded corporation is a legal person in structure only; it exists solely to create profit for its shareholders. Without its profits or its profit potential, there would be no good reason for anyone to purchase its stock. It doesn't care for you, for me, the environment, or anything else besides its competitive standing in the marketplace. If it breaks the law, it doesn't go to jail or get the death penalty; in fact, in most cases, even after large penalties, the corporation pretty much gets off scot-free. Its managers may get jail time, but they are totally expendable: the corporation outlasts them.

The corporation is not a moral person. I won't say it can't or doesn't act in ways that seem ethical, but only that, as a point of fact, it behaves in whatever way will improve its profitability. It's a candidate for the perfect social/moral chameleon. Another word, of course, is whore, but I think that term doesn't apply to all companies. The attempt to compare the compassionate, generous Jesus with the publicly-held corporation makes use of an illegitimate extension of the concept of the person. We may consider the corporation to be a legal person, an entity capable of legal behavior (via its compliance with regulations), but that does not also make it possible for this "person" to act morally in the same way as you or I can. If your car careens off the road and kills pedestrians on the sidewalk, this is not a moral problem for your car—it's your moral problem.

So where am I going with this? It's not to say that stockholders have a moral responsibility to intervene when companies go bad. It's not to say that Christians should invest their money in companies that espouse the good virtues, as in what has been called "ethical investing."[4] Surely there's nothing wrong with those choices, but they are inevitably totally ineffectual. Instead, I think it's time for all Christians to rethink investment in stock itself as both a good thing to do and a financial necessity. This will surely be a painful choice for the American Christian who is planning for retirement and needs the 401(k), the IRAs, and the money market dollars to help him get there, but until we recognize that the corporate model of business is not the sole road to personal prosperity, our investment dollars (and in many cases our tax dollars) will still be handed over to companies without conscience. Divesting from corporations, from all corporations, ought to be an important Quaker testimony.

1. See Matthew 14:13-21.
2. Two good online sources for information about the Wal-Mart corporation are found at Wikipedia and Reclaim Democracy.
3. Especially relevant here is a good article on Christians versus Wal-Mart in the May 2005 issue of Christianity Today.
4. For more information about "ethical investing" see this piece in the January 25, 2005, issue of the Christian Science Monitor.