Crises of Conscience in a Pluralistic Society

There has been a flurry of comment about the decision of the Obama Administration not to grant to Roman Catholic hospitals and universities an exemption to the requirement that their employee's health insurance cover contraceptive. There has been a lot of misinformation about the decision, just as there has been misinformation about how much of Planned Parenthood's services are for abortions. I suspect the misinformation has something to do with how poor a case there is for cutting funding to Planned Parenthood or for allowing Roman Catholic hospitals and universities the requested exemption. What is true is that Roman Catholic institutions that serve the public are facing a crisis of conscience. How are they to continue to fulfill their missions without violating their consciences by paying for contraceptives which they believe to be immoral?

Crises of conscience are not new, and having lived through my own, I have some sympathy for the boards of these Roman Catholic institutions. During the Vietnam war, and even earlier, some Americans, including my Quaker mother, believed that was wrong for them to support the military with their tax dollars. Some chose to  do what might be called living off the grid, making so little actual income that they did not have to pay taxes. My mother, however, worked as a college librarian and didn't have that option. She did have the option, which others took, of refusing to pay that part of her taxes that went to the military budget. She did that, knowing that the IRS would try to find a way to get the money. IRS tried to get her employer to garnishee her wages, but the college refused. Then the IRS went to her bank and the bank allowed the IRS to take the unpaid taxes out of her account. 

I admire the way my mother dealt with her crisis of conscience. Knowing the power of the government to get what it wanted, she simply refused to make it easy for it to collect her taxes. In the end, her taxes were paid, but under protest. In a pluralistic society with people who have all sorts of strong convictions, including religious convictions, there will frequently be conflicts. We cannot avoid crises of conscience, but we can deal with them graciously, recognizing that our convictions are not the only ones that matter.

The Food Stamp President?

A lot has already been written about the reasons for the increase in the number of people receiving Food Stamps during the past three years and I see no reason to repeat the litany of one factors. What has emerged during the GOP campaigns is some clarity about the economic assumptions of a possible Republican administration. One assumption is that the most imrportant contributor to job creation - maybe even the only contributor - is lower taxes for the job creators, that is, rich Americans. Seemingly missing from the GOP job creation equation is the financial health of middle class Americans, the people who would be buying the goods produced by the new employees of the job creators. The availability of capital is important, but less important than the availability of a healthy market for new products. As someone observed recently Amazon would never have succeeded in Africa because there would have been no customers to buy what Amazon was selling.

Transitive Relationships

My Disciples of Christ neighbor and I were talking about ecumenical relationships. I asked him if being in full communion Lutherans meant that Episcopalians were in communion with all those with whom the Lutherans were in communion. The answer, as I already knew, is No.

What has been true about ecumenical relationships has now become true about relationships within the Anglican Communion. All the churches of the Communion are in communion with the Church of England, but not necessarily with one another. This is not something for which I give thanks, but it is a situation which I hope will not get worse. I have no illusions about the prospects for the restoration the Episcopal Church's relationship of full communion with some of the churches in Africa. The best that I can hope for in the short term is that the Church of England will be able to remain in communion with all the Churches of the Communion. Even that seems doubtful at times, but I can still hope.

Just Plain Silly

Sarah Palin must have time on her hands, because I can find no other explanation for her criticism of this year's White House Christmas card, which showed a sleeping Bo by the fire in a beautifully decorated room. Mrs. Palin's objection to it was that it had no images of "family, faith, and freedom." I guess she wanted something more like President Bush's card in 2005 which showed the family's two dogs enjoying the freedom of the snow covered White House lawn.

I grew up with very staunch Republican grandparents who would be embarassed by just how silly some Republicans have become. But as a member of the Democratic Party I hope Mrs. Palin and her ilk will keep on the road to silly.

The Anglican Covenant

I have long thought that the proposed Anglican Covenant would not provide a healthy way forward for the member churches of the Anglican Communion. What I thought it would do was encourage a culture of compliant within the Communion and could result in less honest communication between those who disagree with one another and more triangulation as member churches chose to lodge complaints with the Communion's Standing Committee. 

I had not, however, taken the time to think about an alternative to the proposed Covenant, something which the Archbishop of Canterbury seems to think is required if the Covenant is rejected. I felt, with some justification, that one need not propose an alternative to an innovation, but could simply reject it. A logical alternative to any proposal of this sort is the status quo. Jonathan Clatworthy has done what I could not do, tackling the question of an alternative admirably in  Instead of the Anglican Covenant at the Modern Church website.