Hobby Lobby--Religious Freedom? Really?

I would probably like the owners of Hobby Lobby, as they are depicted in the Time magazine article, The Contraceptive Showdown.  They run a nice company, with pretty frames for pictures.  Hobby Lobby pays a fair wage, and makes sizable donations to charity (even if the charities are creating a Bible museum, it is still charity, right?) The Greens seem like a nice family who lives by their principles, even if our theologies are quite different.  I’ve got plenty of friends whose views of God and sacred texts vary from mine and I like them all quite well.  According to the article, the Greens were courted “by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a conservative religious-freedom law firm, to challenge the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that it infringed on their Christian beliefs by requiring employers to cover contraceptive methods that the family regards as forms of early abortion.” (Biema 2014)  So, the Becket Fund searched for a case to prove their point, and convinced the Greens to bring suit.  It wasn’t even their original idea. 

The Greens prayed about it and found inspiration from the book of Daniel that led them to litigation.  Daniel was in a religious minority, who stood up for his faith, for instance, refusing to eat the ruler’s meat.  He was sent to the lion’s den for his beliefs.  God closed the jaws of the lions and saved him.  The Greens felt that they were like Daniel, a persecuted minority within an oppressive state.  Here’s where I get itchy and nervous.  Really?  Hobby Lobby is a persecuted entity?  First of all, is it an entity at all?  Are corporations, designed to be separate from people and subject to laws as such, entities with beliefs?  Beliefs that can be threatened?  No one is saying the Greens themselves have to use contraception, they just have to offer an insurance plan in which their employees (who may or may not share their employers’ beliefs) may choose an option.  To be fair, it is not all contraception that is the objection, only a few specific types which offend the Greens’s pro-life stance. If you’re curious, there are plenty of articles by people more educated than I am about the law in this case. I have a slightly different bone to pick.

The thing is, it really bugs me to think of an evangelical Christian family as persecuted people who need to stand up for religious freedom.  I know, as Christians, we do set ourselves apart from “the world”, and hold values differently.  I grew up in a Mennonite church and I understand setting one’s self apart, based on religious beliefs, specifically pacifism.  I know people who were conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War, rather than serve in the military.  I know other people who calculate the portion of their personal income tax that pays towards the military.  They give that portion to a peaceful charity, so they do not have to support a war effort.  They, too, live by their principles.  But they do not go to court to insist their employees do the same, or to deny benefits to them with which they disagree.

We live in a country where we are free to practice our faith, and the Christian faith is predominant.  Churches abound where people worship freely.  Many people (bankers, post office workers, business men, stock traders) do not traditionally work on Sundays, the Christian day of worship, not so for Saturdays, the sabbath for other traditions.  Some towns still have Blue Laws and will not sell liquor or open certain businesses on Sunday.  We say “One Nation, Under God” in the pledge of allegiance, and schools start with a moment of silence every day.  As a teacher, I do not have to use a sick day to celebrate Christmas or Easter, unlike my Jewish colleagues for Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur.  It is not hard to be Christian in America.  It might be difficult to live faithfully, resisting the pull of commercialism, greed, and self-interest, but it’s not government regulations that make that difficult.  It might be hard to care for the needy, be respectful of differences of opinion, and love our neighbors as ourselves, but it is not an oppressive state that makes it hard.  

Today, our government did NOT rule in favor of religious freedom.  Today, our government ruled that the religious views of a small group of people, who happen to own a company and employ many workers, exempt those people from providing the same benefits to their workers as non-religious companies.  Today, our government ruled in favor of the rich, white Christians. To be a Christian in America and pretend to be an oppressed person is downright offensive to the many, many oppressed people in this world.  

References:

Biema, D.V. (2014) The Contraceptive Showdown.  Time.  July 7-14, 2014.  28-33.  Print.

The Best Books

I am an Episcopalian because of the books.  In my humble opinion, we write the best ones.  My adult evolution into Christianity and the Episcopal Church began with C.S. Lewis, pilfered from my father’s shelf.  Dad didn’t share Lewis’s theology, but he admired his philosophy and his way with words.  From Lewis I moved on to Robert Farrar Capon, whose delightfully vivid interpretation of the mystical grace of God in Christ just blew my mind.  In a very real way, I was led into church by my bookshelf.  

It goes even further back, to my childhood favorites, The Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, and my young adult fascination with Harry Potter.  Those stories awoke a yearning in me, a yearning for mystery, salvation and grace (although I didn’t know those words at the time).  I wept when Aslan sacrificed himself to the White Witch, and my heart leapt when the Stone Table cracked as he came alive again.  I yearned to know the love of the great lion.  It took me years to understand I was yearning for God.  C.S. Lewis, in his autobiography, writes about moments of longing in his childhood, longing for something else, a sweet longing which passes after an instant, leaving him with a longing for the longing.   I learned about that longing through stories.  With Meg in A Wrinkle in Time, I defeated the evil It with the power of love.  With Harry Potter, I mourned for Dumbledore and grieved for the tragic love of Snape.  I rejoiced when Harry defeated Voldemort through his own death.

A few years ago, when I considered myself “definitely Not a Christian”, I had a conversation with a favorite uncle, an Episcopal priest.  I asked him how he came to Christianity in his life.  He told me, “It is our path and our dharma.”  For several years, I didn’t understand, so I explored all sorts of things:  Buddhism, Hinduism, atheism, Unitarianism.  Each was interesting and educational, but none of them thrilled my heart or satisfied my longing.  Finally, I let the books lead me home to the church.  The childhood stories written on my heart, of love triumphing over hate, of conquering through sacrifice, of losing one’s life in order to gain it, pulled me to the Christian story, the “greatest story”, the story on which they were based in the first place.  I found the delicious longing of my childhood in the gospel, the liturgy, and the hymns.  I found the love that I’d yearned for as a child in Christianity.

Now, I have a chance to inscribe those stories on the hearts of my children. Recently, I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to my four year old daughter.  Right now, she mostly asks me things like, “Is the wolf a girl or a boy?  How old is Lucy?  What color is the witch’s dress?”  She might not understand the grand, sweeping, saga of Aslan’s sacrifice for the traitor, Edmund, but she cheered when they all defeated the witch.  I have a chance to watch her curiosity grow, maybe into longing, longing that can be satisfied with more stories.  I don’t know what her life will bring, but I am arming her with the best weapons, I can find--really, really good books.

Imagine a child

Imagine a child, let’s make him male, just for sake of convenience.  He’s a loving child, kind, and sweet, but not exactly confident.  He’s not the smartest in the class, or the most athletic, or the best-looking, or the most popular with his peers.  He struggles.  He learns the value of hard work in school, but he never succeeds in sports, or is the most important kid at his lunch table.  Nothing comes easy to him, and he doesn’t win very often.  When he’s down, his loved ones give him pep talks.  They tell him, “One day, you’ll get invited to that party.  One day, those kids will wish they had asked you to play with them.  One day, you will own the company where they all want to work.  One day, you can buy and sell them.  One day, all those girls who rejected you will be sorry.  One day, women will fall at your feet because you are so successful.”  Imagine the little boy takes heart in those promises.  He continues to work hard, he keeps his chin up, he smiles through his tears, and he looks forward to the day when he finally wins.

Then, imagine, he never wins.  Imagine he never quite finds the right girl, he has some bad luck at work, he misses out on a promotion, and his latest girlfriend breaks up with him.  Imagine how angry he is.  Imagine how much of a failure he feels.  He has been sold a bill of goods, a load of crap, by those who love him.  He's been banking on the day when all his hard work and positive attitude will pay off and he will finally be on top, and then everything will work out just fine. He has been banking on that “one day”, when he would finally win, finally be successful, finally be good enough to deserve to be loved.  Finally, he realizes the lies he’s believed his entire life and he is pissed off.  What does that boy do?  Does he pick himself up, find some help, find some people who can love him for the blessed, grace-filled failure that he is, the blessed, grace-filled, failure that we all are, and find peace?  Or does he pick up a gun or a knife or a bomb or a car and go hurt someone to even the score?

When we tell our hurting children, “One day, you will beat them all”, we are playing russian roulette with their fragile beings.  Competition works, only for the winners.  If you never win, you get pissed off, let’s be honest.  We can talk about sportsmanship, and being good winners and losers, and those are valuable lessons.  They are valuable, if the loser is still loved, if the loser knows he lost today, but it’s OK.  If the loser knows that it’s OK if he never, ever wins.  Does that happen?

Do we ever teach our children that it’s OK if they never win, if they are never the best-looking, the most popular, or the smartest?  Do we teach them that just because they’ve had a rough time, they don’t deserve some future prize?  Do we tell them that it’s OK if they are the hard-working janitor of the Fortune 500 company, and not the owner?  Do we teach them to take pride in their own work, no matter how mundane or menial the task?  Do we teach them to care for each other, to love their detractors, to give of themselves rather than try to win?  Do we teach them to love others as themselves (which means they must love themselves, too?)  That there will be a place for them to be loved, no matter what?

Because, when I hear someone telling a sad kid, “One day you will beat all of those guys who make fun of you now”, I feel downright terrified.

Raising children

The other day, I went to the store buy a new hairdryer.  My husband suggested I take our eldest daughter with me and buy her a small toy.  She had been a good girl lately, and we don’t buy her many toys.  Don’t get me wrong, she has tons and tons of toys, but they are accumulated from generous family and friends at holidays and birthdays, and hand-me-downs from neighbors.  Our house is swimming in toys, but we didn’t have to purchase many of them.  She picks out her prize, a My Little Pony.  She really wanted to get two Littlest Pet Shop toys, but they didn’t have the right ones.  So, she chose one pony, for the cost of two LPS toys.  She was so proud and excited with her new toy, but as we got the car, she said, “I only got one, Mommy, not two.”  My heart sank a little bit.  Here is my middle-class child, who just had a dance recital this weekend and a horseback riding lesson earlier in the day.  Here is my little girl who can want for nothing, not food, clothes, toys, or education, not love or attention or safety.  Here is my privileged, white, blue-eyed, blond-haired, little girl, raised by middle-class, educated parents with steady jobs, and she is sad that she only got one toy at the store.  How do I counteract that type of entitlement?

It’s not her fault--she’s four, and every four year old wants toys.  The sad thing is that many four-year-olds don’t even have shelter, food, clothes, safety or love.  My kid has everything she could wish for, and she wants more.  I told her that other kids might not have many toys, that other kids would be happy with just one My Little Pony, that other kids might not even have food to eat.  She nodded, but I know she didn’t understand.  Honestly, I doubt I even understand.

I want my children to have all the opportunities for a diverse life experience that I can give them.  I want them to be safe, comfortable, and to enjoy their childhood.  I want them to have a good education, to be well-rounded with various activities, to have meaningful life experiences, like travel, museums, concerts, and plays.  I want them to be challenged, to be helpful, to be brave.  And, I want them to realize how extraordinarily lucky they are, to have been born to middle-class parents who can afford this comfortable lifestyle, to have been born to people who identify with the predominant ethnic group and sexual orientation and have reaped the benefits of that privilege.  I want my kids to be aware of their undeserved luck to not live in a war-torn country, to not have to wonder where their next meal will come from, to not have to wish and hope for a warm blanket or a safe home.  I want them to use this comfortable, supportive upbringing to learn to work hard, persevere, be kind and be generous.  I want them to grow up and make the world a better place, where other little kids can be just as safe, healthy, and loved as mine are.  How do I raise them with that kind of awareness?