Posted by Pamela Urfer

Getting back to the original question asked in Lisa Miller’s Newsweek article – How can college-aged men and women best resist peer pressure to have sex, or, at least, resist the kind of sex they don’t want? As Donna Freitas says, Students “want the right to demand more from their peers when it comes to sex and relationships – more joy, more satisfaction, more commitment – and less sex.”
Perhaps we could think of this choice as one between “high level” and “low level” sex. I’m not talking here about the quality level of the sex act. There are plenty of books for advice on that. I’m talking about the emotional, relational, and spiritual level of sex. It may be hard for some to imagine a “spiritual” component to pre-marital sex, but many who are sexually active on campus are searching for precisely that. They want to know how to conduct an affair that is respectful, responsible and constructive for the persons involved. They want to know how to practice kindness, consideration and truthfulness in a relationship, and how to refrain from using the other to satisfy their own selfish needs.
For a moment, let’s imagine the unimaginable: two college or grad students, perhaps even Christian students, begin a serious affair, moving in together. If they were older, out of school, they might have planned a wedding. But they both know this is not the right time to marry. In an earlier, more “Biblical”, age this couple would have been married off by their families as soon as they reached sexual maturity – at fourteen for girls and perhaps sixteen for boys – a natural remedy for their burgeoning sexual urges and desires. Surely this is what Saint Paul meant by advising “it is better to marry than to burn.”
But this is America, and education trumps nature. Careers , and enhanced earning power, await and must be prepared for. This is the path we as a culture have chosen and the young must suffer for it. God is not the only, nor, perhaps, the most important, person expected to have a say in such matters. The young people have not finished their studies, and neither family would countenance marriage at this point. Their families counsel restraint – perhaps for years. Easy for them to say. But the young people must acquiesce. After all, it’s the families who are paying the bills.
Couples who choose pre-marital co-habitation cannot be considered “spouses,” with the (perhaps illusory) permanence that entails. But they should aim, at the very least, at being “friends,” people who act towards each other in a trustworthy, caring and reliable manner, like non-sexual friends. They shouldn’t have to think of the one with whom they are having sex as a rival, enemy, liar, user, or traitor. Although these relationships are not, at the moment, permanent, neither one of the couple should have to wake up in the morning wondering if their partner has left in the night.
In scripture, God has given us much good advice in conducting relationships, from “A gentle answer turns away wrath” to “Do not let the sun go down on your anger,” to “Love is patient and kind, it is not jealous or conceited or proud. Love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable. It does not keep a record of wrongs.” If we could all achieve relationships like this, life would be happier all around.
What these young people should be learning are the skills needed to argue constructively, avoid pushing each other’s buttons, and treat each other with respect and kindness. If the arrangement fails to become permanent, as lots of marriages do, at least the skills learned here may help create a stronger tie with partners who come later. And it might even lead to marriage itself. Mine did – going on forty-four years now.

Posted by Pamela Urfer

As we struggle to find a way of discussing sex at the university level, let’s first distinguish among different types of “sex.” Premarital sex is one issue, and probably the one most of concern to students. Cheating on a spouse is another. Pornography is a third. Homosexuality comes in here somewhere. And then there’s marriage. And divorce.
It’s helpful if we can agree that not all of these are equally horrible and offensive to God. Nor are all sins equal. The Apostle John distinguishes sins that do and do not inevitably lead to death. (1 John 5:16.) And Jesus speaks of the “unforgiveable sin,” implying that whatever it is, is worse than some others he could name. There’s rape, and then there’s the rape of a child. Much worse.
Currently, Christian practice treats divorce as more a disaster than a sin, even though that is not the traditional stance. Nor does this position acknowledge the relative weight of its consequences. More hurt to families and children has happened because of divorce than because of, say, homosexuality (with only 5% of the population participating versus 50%) even though, at this time, disproportionate attention is given to the evils of same-sexuality.
Going back to premarital sex, we must acknowledge that this is no longer the huge problem it once was. For most of history, for a man to have sex with a woman meant the risk of getting her pregnant. If they were not married and he abandoned her, pregnant, both she and the child would suffer – poverty, ostracization, loneliness.
How could that be prevented? Marriage. And if the man were already married? A little late to be thinking about that, but he could still provide financially for her and the child, at least until she found another mate. That would, at least, eliminate societal approbation and poverty. The problem here is that once the man got a woman pregnant, what would prevent him having sex with her again? If he liked her, it would be hard for him to refrain. This, of course, would place his wife and children in a painful situation. Now they would be the ones suffering societal approbation and perhaps poverty, as funds were diverted elsewhere. Thus, it became common to label the woman a whore and exile her from the community, most likely to a brothel.
These were all serious considerations in the days before reliable birth control. And Christian teaching, quite rightly, proposed many and varied restrictions to prevent these ills. Societal care was taken to assure that unmarried persons not be left alone or in “compromising situations.” A woman’s virginity was considered a prize to be claimed only by her legitimate spouse, and a lack of it a hindrance to a respectable married life. Many less than Christian hindrances were also applied: any illegitimate offspring were labeled “bastards” and had a limited chance of succeeding in life, which was thought to encourage restraint. And, of course, the same “outlaw” fate would be visited upon the woman, if usually not the man.
All these concerns and their (partly successful) remedies were dealt a death blow in the 1960s with the invention of the Pill and other preventative devices. Yet, with (much) less worry today about pregnancy, but with the same societal norms holding sway in many communities, new methods of insuring compliance with the still-existing ban of pre-marital sex must be discovered, or invented. Scriptural quotes are invoked, ignoring the fact that pre-marital sex is never mentioned in scripture, only extra-marital sex, as girls were married off as soon as, or before, they became sexually mature. Chastity is held as a high moral goal, creating the need for Chastity Balls and Purity Rings to validate the effort. And I’m sure Christian parents still warn their sons about marrying a girl who has “slept around.”
But which men today are as concerned about female chastity as they were when the status of their male heir could be called into question, or when one episode of pre-marital sex could label their wife-to-be a whore? And which parents really believe that their daughter will never find a good husband if she is not a virgin? Who cares about this sort of thing anymore?
God? Does God care? I’m not sure He does. Scripturally, sexual purity is not a Christian but a ritualistic concept. The Israelites refrained from sexual acts as a preparation for bringing their sacrifices before the altar. Jesus praised the “pure of heart,” not the pure of body. Scripture also says that God’s bottom line is the Great Commandment: to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves. Loving your neighbor means looking out for their welfare. Pre-marital sex is not necessarily harmful to anyone’s welfare – and might even be good for it.
What do you think?

Posted by Pamela Urfer

In my last posting, I mentioned a book, Sex and the Soul, by Donna Freitas, which had been quoted in a recent Newsweek article. In her book, Freitas recommends that college students be given an opportunity to tell the truth about what they want out of relationships, including courtship, romance, intercourse, and abstinence without incurring the derision and wrath of their peers, mentors and campus ministers. Freitas feels that the dominance of the hook-up culture places undue pressure on students and praises “True Love Waits,” an organization at Harvard (and elsewhere) for opening up the discussion.

Under her direction, Freitas’ own students, dissatisfied with the prevailing level of “sex talk” on their campus, decided to publish their own newspaper, one devoted to sex, dating, religion and spirituality. “The purpose was to challenge the sexual ethic on campus with both personal experience and religious wisdom – in the hope of making romance and relationships more meaningful.” The plan worked. Other students told the publishers how they’d spoken truth, said aloud some things they’d thought themselves but were afraid to admit, wrote of feelings they didn’t know anyone else on campus shared, and made them feel less alone.”

Freitas goes on to say that “the students’ stories, discussion, and articles made it painfully clear that hook-up culture does not help young women and men discover the thrill of sexual desire or romantic passion, of falling madly in love and expressing this love sexually. Within hook-up culture, many students perform sexual acts because that’s ‘just what people do.’” Feitas goes on to say that “living within hook-up culture means putting up an ‘I don’t care’ front about behavior, submitting to unwanted experiences, and, in many cases, slowly chipping away at personal standards, expectations, sense of self, and respect for others, until these are sublimated so fully that students almost can’t remember what they were in the first place.” The result of the campus-wide discussion was that a fresh, new approach was made in the area of both sexuality and spirituality.

I realize how difficult it is to start a discussion about sex, especially for those who believe that sex outside of marriage is a sin. But in our culture sex is more than a sin; it’s a contamination. Richard Beck, a Christian psychology professor, says that when he asks his class “Raise your hand if you feel like you spend too much money on yourself?” Every hand goes up. When he then asks, “How many of you aren’t virgins anymore?” No hands go up. But, he says, “there were a lot of nervous faces in the room.”
“Why the reticence? We all know sexual sins are qualitatively different from other kinds of sins, but why are they?” As he explains, “the reason has to do with the metaphorical structure of the sin and its associated psychology. Most sins are understood via ambulatory or performance metaphors. Sins structured this way are ‘mistakes’ or ‘failures.’ We ‘stumble’ and ‘fall.’ But note that there is nothing particularly noxious about falling down. It hurts, but there is no stigma attached to it. Thus, we willingly admit to committing these ‘ambulatory sins.’”
But sexual sins are structured by a different logic, a purity logic. When we fall in sexual sin, we become “polluted” or “defiled.” This brings a strong feeling of revulsion, which, when centered on the self, creates self-loathing and shame. Worse, the logic of contamination implies permanence. You don’t just “get back on your feet” after a contamination sin. You simply experience a self-loathing that is associated with a permanent “taint.”

Is this the situation at UCSC? Are our students bothered and depressed by the dominant sexual norms but feeling powerless to change them? Are they ashamed to admit they have had, or what to have, sex because of the contamination aspect? Do we even know what the students think? Perhaps it’s time to find out.

Posted by Pamela Urfer

A few months ago, one of the Newman Center students, Andrea, asked me about organizing a forum on Sexuality and Spirituality. She said:
“I feel that this is an important topic for people of faith, especially since the Christian Church is unwilling to engage in conversation about it. In college people are exploring their sexuality, whether they consider themselves spiritual or not. I think it would be wonderful to engage in conversation that is open and not controlled by leaders who are simply shouting ‘abstinence only’… without a reason why.”

Then, a few weeks ago, an article came out in the Religion page of Newsweek called “Sexual Revolution, Part II” by Lisa Miller. Miller is talking about a recent dispute at Harvard between the True Love Revolution, which supports sexual abstinence as a lifestyle, and feminist students who say that “calling the sexual act degrading to [women] is the complete opposite of feminism.” They say women have the right to have sex with whomever, wherever and however they want. The TLR counted by changing their mission statement to assert that sex outside of marriage is “harmful to both parties,” and that choosing abstinence is “true feminism” which “recognizes the natural characteristics, strengths and abilities of women and seeks to affirm them in this identity.” This position has the feminists up in arms because it raises questions about the goals of the sexual revolution: Does female liberation mean being able to say yes? Or does it mean saying no?

Unfortunately, what might have been a useful discussion has turned acrimonious with hot-headed letters posted in the student newspaper and on message boards throughout campus. Miller thinks this is a shame as she feels TLR is on to something here and admires its ability to articulate students’ dissatisfaction with sex and sex talk on campus. Many students complain that the “hookup culture” is dominant and oppressive. Donna Freitas, author of Sex and the Soul, believes college students are not given an opportunity to tell the truth about what they want out of relationships – desires that include courtship and romance – without drawing the derision of their peers and even their professors.

Their health services hand out condoms and lecture about sexually transmitted diseases. Their friends boast and complain endlessly about hookups real and imagined. “The average college student is miserable about sex. The idea of getting to step away from it is really appealing,” says Freitas. Miller believes that religious groups on campus are missing an opportunity if they don’t invite a more nuanced conversation about sex and help guide students through this modern sexual wilderness. Why not look to religion for some of the most thoughtful analyses of how liberated women and men can reasonably opt out of sex – or, at least, the kind of sex they don’t want to have? Christine Firer Hinze, a theological professor at Fordham University, believes that choosing abstinence can carry a strong counter-cultural message and a vision of personal fulfillment beyond immediate gratification. “A religious viewpoint can point you in a direction that says wholeness, integrity, enjoying life, even being a sensual person, can lead to a kind of fulfillment.” Teaching kids that saying no can feel as good as saying yes – that’s a revolution.

I think Andrea would agree with me that it’s time for us to talk about sex and God in the same breath.

Posted by Peggy Pollard

One of my modern Christian heroes who I believe effectively lives out Jesus’ message is the head of the University of California Merced, Chancellor Steve Kang.
According to the book “Everything must Change” by Brian McLaren, Jesus’ original message is full of radical socio-economic-political statements, much less concerned with our personal comfort than that we each serve God’s purpose for ALL people, most of whom have much less power, wealth,and opportunity than we Americans.
How do we do this effectively?
Not just a feel-good-fuzzy love for humanity, nor naively telling everyone to “give away all you have to the poor,” Jesus’ message requires a more sophisticated understanding of what God is calling us to.
First we must rely on a personal relationship with God to equip, empower and guide us into God’s bigger intentions of love, justice and equity for ALL members of the human race. Jesus calls us to battle the systemic injustice of our culture’s “Security-Prosperity-Equity Suicide Machine” that pushes us to self destruction, McLaren says.
Certainly maximizing the power of our education is one of the best ways.
Chancellor Kang does this. Without religious talk, he accumulates a treasure trove of education and academic power to bless many, many people.
UC Merced has the highest percentage of the students from low socio-economics families of all UC schools. Small classes and high quality faculty empower students with academic excellence, then sends them out as a powerful force to improve our society.
Chancellor Kang is doing exactly what McLaren says we SHOULD be doing: using our lives to bless and empower the disadvantaged of the world.

Posted by Herb Schmidt

The current debate about Health Care in our country rightly should be of great concern to people of different Faith Communities. With over 40 million of Americans without health insurance, with people facing bankruptcies because health care costs, others dying because they can’t get medical assistance, people of faith need to add their voice to this important issue. It is a matter of Justice and good stewardship of the resources God has given us.

Like most problems there is an unrecognized ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. In this case it is not an Elephant but a CASH COW. The reason American’s can’t get affordable health care is that in this country we have made Medical care, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, and the entire system into a profit making enterprise. The Free Market has its place but not in providing health care. Fire protection, Police protection are not money making businesses nor should Health Care be. Look at some of the facts.

In America we spend over $7,000.00 per person per year for health care. In other developed countries like Canada, Great Britan, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countires, etc. the cost is less than $2,500.00 per person. Yet many of these countries have better systems. American is 33rd in longevity and lag behind many developed countries in many different categories of care. Profit insurance companies use only 70 cents of each premium dollar on health care. The rest is overhead and profit. The administrative cost by the government for medicare is only 3% while administrative costs for most insurance companies is more than 20%. Medical Insurance companies hire people to find ways not to pay claims. They are the ones who get in between the patient and doctors. Pharmaceutical Companies spent more on advertising than they do on research. If you go to Mexico or Canada you can buy the same drug from the same company for about one fourth of the price you pay for the same drug in this country. Our representative in the House and Senate are beholden to drug companies and pharmaceuticals because of their contributions to political campaigns and their large lobbying efforts in the congress. The companies at the present time spend more than a million dollars a day to defeat any change in our health care. It is time to change the system.

The only way to correct the present system in this country is to have a government run single-payer system or at least a robust public option. The Government can deliver a much better system than the Cash Cow system we have today. Think where we would be without Social Security and Medicare. Both of these plans when they were presented were opposed by the same people and party who object to the present proposed changes to our system today. Of course these systems need up dating and modification but our country would be in dire straits if we did not have these systems.

It is time we name the Elephant in the room. It is time to get the CASH COW OUT of our medical care system. A market driven systems is the problem. The time is now! Write and call your representatives so that we can get a medical system that truly uses the resources we have in this country to serve all our citizens.

Posted by Peter Payne

Many people use as an argument for belief the creation of the universe. This is called the “first cause” argument: if the universe had a beginning (ie, the Big Bang,) then the cause of the Big Bang must be something that transcends the physical universe. Coupled with the apparent fine-tuning of the natural laws which make life possible and the claim that it would take a super-intelligent Being to so arrange natural law, this argument designates “God” as the transcendent cause of the universe.

There are objections to this position. As Bertrand Russell puts it, “If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause.” And, “if there can be anything without a cause, then it might just as well be the world as God.” To fail to seek a cause for God is to abandon the premise that everything must have a cause.

Furthermore, if one allows that God is an exception to the rule, then why not simply stop with the universe and suppose that the universe came into being without a cause? Alternatively, why not suppose that the universe has always existed? “The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination,” Russell says. His conclusion is that “there cannot be any validity to the argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu’s view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, ‘How about the tortoise?’ the Indian said, ‘Suppose we change the subject.’ The argument is really no better than that.” It should be said in response to Russell that when he wrote this essay in 1927, the big bang theory had not yet arisen.

This, of course, does not address the “fallacy” that Russell said is committed by the first-cause argument: the apparent conflict between the principle that “everything must have a cause” and allowing that God be uncaused. To see what is wrong with Russell’s claim, let’s alter the Indian tale. Suppose that upon being asked, “What about the tortoise?” the response had been, “The world rests on the back of an elephant, and the elephant on the back of a tortoise, but all three rest in infinite space.” If this had been the reply, it would clearly block the further question, “But what does infinite space rest on?” Were such a question asked, the Indian master would rightly have replied, “Your question reveals that you do not understand the concept of infinite space.”

At this point, it might be objected that God is not infinite space. This is, of course, true, but God is in some respects more like infinite space than like any finite thing. God is not some sort of cosmic superman, like other beings yet with super strength and abilities. Rather, God is completely unique. His power is literally without limit. He is not limited by space, or time, or anything else in creation. Although we refer to God as “a being,” there is an important sense in which it is inappropriate to think of God as a being, one more being amongst the many that exist.

The being of God, God’s nature, is reflected in some ways in what God has created, but God is categorically distinct from all that he has created. We can relate to God, and we speak of God as the object of our worship, but God is not an object or an entity in the sense that all finite things are. The theologian Paul Tillich aptly expressed this by stating that God is “the ground of our being” – not another being, but the source of all being; not a thing; but the creator of all things.

Coming back to Russell, when Russell says, “If everything has a cause, then God must have a cause,” he is taking “everything” to mean all that is real. God is real, but one must ask whether God is the sort of being which one should expect to fall under the principle “everything has cause.” Every thing may have a cause, but is God a thing in the sense which this dictum supposes?

To illustrate the caution here, consider the reality of mathematical truths. The metaphysical status of mathematical entities is a difficult issue, but suppose one were to say that mathematical entities are real, should one therefore expect that they are caused? It would be rather odd to suppose that they must be caused. Mathematical entities are not at all like physical entities. Experience tells us that physical entities are caused and their existence seems to depend in an obvious way on prior states of affairs. But mathematical entities, if they exist, do not seem to have this same sort of contingent status. Now, this in itself does not demonstrate that it is utterly impossible for mathematical entities to have been caused—God might in some sense cause or sustain the existence of mathematical
entities—but at minimum it would seem quite unwarranted to suppose that mathematical entities must have a cause.

In a similar way, it may or may not be logically coherent to ask whether something could have caused God. Whether or not such a question is logically coherent depends on how the concept of God gets defined. But at minimum it would be unwarranted to assume that God must have a cause. Given that God is infinite and has the character described above, there is good reason for suspecting that the principle “everything has a cause” ought not to be applied to God.

Does this mean that the first-cause argument is a compelling argument? Not necessarily. Yet, its weakness does not lie in the sort of fallacy that Russell says it commits. The question “What caused God?” may or may not be intelligible, but there is good reason for suspecting that someone who takes this as a serious objection to the first-cause argument, either does not comprehend the concept of God or is not taking the concept seriously when the question is asked.

Posted by Pamela

I was an undergrad at Berkeley at the time of the Free Speech Movement (1964 – 65.) This Free Speech was not about shouting four-letter words from the steps of Sproul Hall, as most people think. This was about the freedom to say “I am, or was, a member of the Communist Party,” and not lose your job.
One result of the Joe McCarthy witch hunts during the 50s was a clause in the California constitution that required all state employees, which included all UC system employees – from students who worked in the cafeteria, as I did, to the more exalted faculty and staff – to sign a “loyalty oath” to the United States of America. Those who wouldn’t sign, couldn’t get hired, and those who did but lied about their political affiliations, were guilty of a felony if they were found out. And there were many people busily trying to find out which of the profs at Berkeley were secretly “pink.”
We don’t usually think of the right to proclaim “I am a Communist” as the true meaning of free speech, but that’s pretty much what it boils down to. Professors get tenure just so that they can’t be fired if it turns out they have a political affiliation not currently in favor with the administration.
Or a religious affiliation.
These days, being a communist is a plus on the resume of anyone applying for a teaching job at a UC campus. But what about being a Christian? At the UCSC campus, with a faculty of 1500, there are perhaps ten self-defined Christian faculty. Or, rather, ten who are willing to let their affiliation be known. If there are others, and it’s hard to believe there aren’t more than ten out of fifteen hundred, they are keeping a very low profile. Very low.
And why is that? Why are they reluctant to let their religious affiliation be known?
Because they might get fired.
And why would they get fired?
Perhaps because they hold views that other faculty and staff find problematic: that not everything can be explained by science; that the universe is not a closed system; hat transcendence is real.
Even if I were not a Christian myself, this kind of small-mindedness would bother me. There was a time when Jews were not allowed (often by Christians) into the Academy. I hope that if I had been in a position of authority then, I would not have tolerated that prejudice. If American-Indians were being denied jobs (by Christians) because of their beliefs, I would not look the other way. Just as I did during my involvement in the Civil Rights Movement (I was pretty busy in the 60s,) I would have protested such bigoted restrictions.
Perhaps this new prejudice is some kind of perverse pay-back, giving Christians a “taste of their own medicine.” That’s also very small-minded, but I suspect it’s not the Jews and American-Indians who are setting these standards. Those same someones who won’t hire Christians, also won’t allow those already in the faculty teach any subject that hinges on Christian belief, so that First Century history and philosophy courses can only be led by atheists – just as Spanish is always taught by musicians and geology by literature professors.
The mantra these days is that the university is supposed to be about diversity – we value those with ideas that are not ours, so that we can learn something new. But here’s the question: Do those with Christian viewpoints have nothing to teach us? Or are we afraid of what they might say? Can those Christians at UCSC who are still in the closet come out at last and say with pride, and with no fear of losing their lab funding, “I am a Christian?”
What sort of message does this situation send students? “We value diversity, as long as we approve of it. If you’re already a Christian, you had better change your mind if you want a job in academia. And if you aren’t, don’t even think about it! We have a quota at this campus, and it’s 1:150.”

Posted by Pamela

When we first started looking for speakers for our series on “The Seven Deadly Sins,” I had no idea that the one topic no one wanted to cover was Envy. Not any more so than the others, anyway. But I’ve learned something. No one wants to admit they have been envious. No one wants to talk about it. Apparently, envy is not sexy.

Anger is readily admittable. It makes one look strong, if impetuous. And it’s easy to apologize for. “I lost my temper. I won’t do it again.” How often have we heard those words? Lust is almost admirable. What a Dude! we think. Even Greed is Good, according to Gordon Gecko and certain Wall Street types recently in t he news. But envy? Not so much.

Envy makes one look weak. Needy. We want other people to envy us. We already have a good life; why should we need more? We send out long Christmas letters full of our achievements and those of our families, so that people will see how well we’ve done. The sad truth is, we do envy others. But because it’s so shameful, we call it something else.

Let me tell you a story. Please forgive me for using stereotypes here, but a lot of envy and dissatisfaction in our lives is based on what others have done. It makes it easier to complain if we see them as groups, classes or races, rather than individuals. It’s in stereotypes we think, so that’s how I’ll tell my story.

Once upon a time, there was a WASPy young man (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, for those who don’t recognize this.) He came from a wealthy family, with all the right connections. He want to the best prep schools, where his father and grandfather had gone, and when it came time, there was a slot at Harvard waiting for him, just as there had been for his father and grandfather. We’ll call this young man Legacy Guy.

Everyone was envious of Legacy. He had what everyone wanted and they wished there were some way they could take it away from him and make it their own. And it seemed he hardly appreciated what he had, which made it all the worse. He appreciated it so little that late in his freshman year he got caught up in a frat house rape scandal and was expelled.

His slot was given to a bright young Asian woman who we’ll call Straight “A” Girl. Her parents were immigrants and had scrimped and saved, both working two jobs to put her through school. Fortunately, she had gotten a scholarship, but that meant she had to maintain her high grade point average. She often wished she could have had Legacy’s advantages, especially the money that made life so easy for him. She couldn’t understand why he threw it all away so easily. Of course, she didn’t know about his family problems, the father who was never there, the alcoholic mother. She wouldn’t have envied him those. Her parents were supportive, maybe too much so. But her time at Harvard didn’t last very long. In the middle of her junior year, she had a nervous breakdown.

The next person to take that slot at Harvard was a Black kid from a small town. His family had no money, no connections. He didn’t even have much of a family. His parents were gone, and he had been raised by his grandfather. His grades were terrible, reflecting the state of his schools. But he was a documentary filmmaker, and his senior project had blown away the admission board. We’ll call him Creative Genius.

Of course Creative Genius envied Legacy’s money and Straight “A” Girl’s supportive family. He thought they had an easy ride in life. And Legacy and Straight “A” envied him. After all, he was in Harvard and they weren’t. In their minds, he had cheated to get there, not having had either the grades or the background to make it on his own. They thought he should have gone to an art school with a major in filmmaking and left Harvard to the real scholars.

So, with everyone envying someone else, you can imagine what their attitudes were towards the next affirmative action vote to come up in their state. Or tax cuts for Legacy’s father, whom everyone agreed was too rich already. Or for letting more immigrants into this country when there weren’t enough slots at Harvard for the native-born. Their envy, and the voting pattern it created, made a big difference in their lives and in the future of their country. Multiplied by 30 million, you can imagine the damage that could create.

Some of you may say that this is a case of social injustice. But it seems to me that justice was fairly well satisfied here. There’s a difference between injustice and envy. Injustice, or justice, is what happens – and envy is how we feel about it. If we are envious of another individual or another group, we may even welcome injustice.

If we are envious, we begin to wish other people ill, to hope they fail, to suffer as we have suffered, or even drop dead – so that we can take their place. It causes us to distrust other people, to wonder what they are plotting against us. We begin to talk against a certain group, to demonize them. Believe me, I know how that works. In my spare time, I’m a writer and filmmaker. I’m extremely jealous of other writers that get better publishing contract or sell more books. I’d like to see them all drop dead.

Earlier I said that to make our envy less shameful, we call it by another name. That name is Rights. Now, don’t get me wrong. The struggle for Rights – civil rights, women’s rights, minority rights – has been a wonderful thing. There has been a lot of injustice in our country and the struggle for legitimate rights have helped many. But there’s a dark side to rights.

If we can convince ourselves, and others, that we have a right to a slot at Harvard, then we will do every thing we can to make sure we and not some other person gets it. If someone else does get it, rather than feeling sad, we can bolster our indignation by protesting their good fortune with a clear conscience. If we can convince ourselves we’re not just trying to get something for ourselves, but that instead we’re fighting injustice, or working toward a more equal society, there’s no limit to how outraged we can be at those who have done better than us.

But the more of this that happens in our country, the more the fabric of society is stretched thin. The political culture becomes adversarial, us against them. And it feels good. As long as it’s someone else’s fault, it’s not our own failings we’re dealing with.

Blame offers a simple narrative of how problems and tragedies arise, and a beguilingly simple solution – a fairy-tale solution. The fairy-tale is that the world can be fair, according to our ideas of fairness, as long as other people don’t get in our way. We think that we should always get what we deserve and if we just yell loud enough, it will happen. But there’s no way the world can be arranged that way. Sometimes these things depend on chance. Sometimes it’s a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

People with better qualification will still lose jobs and university slots to people with worse qualifications. The resentment of those who lose out probably won’t be mollified by the fact that the beneficiaries of the policy might be more needy than they. If we are offended every time we don’t get what we want, and we let that sense of entitlement grow, our focus can slip from injustice to demands, and we will find ourselves unable to reach beyond our bitterness.

Our competitive society places a high premium on academic achievement. Getting ahead, making our place in the world. We think that getting into Harvard will make us happy, wealthy and wise for the rest of our days. It won’t. If it could, there would be no suicides at Harvard.

There’s a reason the Seven Sins we’re dealing with this year are called “Deadly.” Unrestrained, they can do some serious damage to our spirits – twisting, corroding, debilitating them. I think we all know that. I believe I can say about God, at least the God I know, is that he wants better for us. He wants us to get along with others, to treat them as we would want to be treated, to give them the benefit of the doubt. God’s values are different from ours. God doesn’t consider intelligence or achievement virtues. For God, kindness, respect, and love are the most important traits.

Something I find especially comforting about God is that he knows the way my life is going to turn out. Because of that, I can trust him when he suggests that there may be a better way for me to live. Haven’t you ever found that losing something – a boyfriend, a job, a school slot – turned out to be the best thing that ever happened? We can never know our lives in advance, or even what makes us happy. But God can.

Posted by Pamela

“Certainly not!” say a loud number of voices. “Religion is an embodiment of irrationality and a threat to liberal values. Religious people are crazy. They’d as soon bomb you or shoot you as look at you. It’s too much trouble! Best leave it alone.”
And didn’t your mother tell you the same thing? “Don’t talk about religion, politics, or sex,” she cautioned, “and you’ll get alone with everyone.” The post–Enlightenment modern university agrees with your mother, but for other reasons.
The most well-known are:
1. Acknowledgement of religion violates our post-Enlightenment principles.
2. There is no God, so therefore religion is basically self-deception and superstition.
3. Religion has perpetrated too many atrocities and must be acknowledged as the root of most social unrest in the world.
4. There may be a god (or many) but vulnerable college students should not be pressured into joining any organized church by purveyors of those beliefs so that they can use their time on campus to study, learn a trade and/or find themselves (in a secular sense only.)
5. Even classes in history of religion must be taught by non-believers as anyone who is actually a member of those religions can hardly be considered neutral in their beliefs and will use class time to proselytize.
Recognize those? Let’s see if we can’t (easily) rebut them.
1. There was much wisdom, as well as much craziness, in the 18th century struggle against dogma and hierarchy. But now, with the Enlightenment’s own dogma and hierarchy firmly in power, we might want to reexamine what we consider oppressive.
2. The non-existence of God has never been proven. It is a minority opinion held by a small (but influential) number of Northern Europeans/Americans.
3. Yes, this is true. And much good has come from religion as well – the anti-slavery movement in Britain and America, Child Labor laws, the Civil Rights movement and even William Wilberforce’s pet project, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. As evangelical lefty Jim Wallis says, “The answer to bad religion isn’t secularism. The answer is better religion.”
4. Protecting college students can only go so far. Outlawing alcohol and drugs has been only partly successful. Forcing students off-campus for their stimulants is not the same as a cure. Religion, if outlawed, can also create a backlash. Nothing is more attractive than the forbidden.
5. What exactly are we afraid of here? Are physicists not allowed to teach physics in case their natural enthusiasm for the subject seduces students away from their chemistry major? Must native Italian speakers teach Swedish instead, so as to keep language learning on neutral ground? Teachers of the same religions they practice can only be made into bogymen if adopting a religion is considered a fate worse than death. (see #4 above.)
There is one more point forbidders of religion often miss – many students arrive on campus as members of a religion. According to the 2006 CIRP survey, at UCSC 48.9% of incoming students self-identify as practitioners of a religion. 52.1% will have attended a religious service and 33.8% carried on a discussion of religion in the past year.
Roman Catholics at 17.5% are, by far, the largest self-identified group. These students, raised in a close family environment with religion a basic aspect of their identity, are being asked by the paternalistic university to renounce their heritage “for their own good” and the better development of their ‘identity.’ Teaching such students that God doesn’t exist, that they don’t really need him and are far better off without him, is to do them some sort of damage. And it is a step beyond the true parameters of a noble university.