Politics

Hi folks. In the library where I work, the reference and children's department annually has a summer reading program where people make a list of the books that they read during the summer. I've always been a bookworm, and books have played an important role in influencing my views on politics and spirituality. One of the things that has most impressed me about the various Crossleft bloggers has been their insights and their unique perspectives on politics and Christianity.

Just out of curiousity, I wonder if Crossleft readers would like to share what books have had a profound influence on their views on politics and Christianity. Since most of the readers of this site are Christian and are influenced by the Bible, what books of the Bible most influenced you? In sharing your books, we may get to know a little more about you and your philosphy of life.

Angelo

In the March/April 2008 edition of Tikkun Magazine, Walter Wink, Professor emeritus of Auburn Theological Seminary, pondered upon what happened to Jesus and his disciples:

"No two resurrection accounts in the four Gospels are alike. At the core of all these accounts is the simple testimony: we experienced Jesus as alive…The resurrection appearances did not… take place in the temple before thousands of worshipers, but in the privacy of homes or cemeteries. They did not occur before religious authorities, but to the disciples hiding from those authorities.

"What happened was every bit as real as any other event, only it was not historically observable…Though skeptics might interpret what the disciples experienced as a mass hallucination, the experience itself cannot be denied…what may have happened: the very image of God was altered by the sheer force of Jesus being. God would never be the same. Jesus had indelibly imprinted the divine…In Jesus God took on humanity, furthering the evolution revealed in Ezekiel's vision of Yahweh on the throne in "the likeness, as it were, of a human form." -Ezek. 1:26.

One of the things that everyone talks about when President Obama is mentioned is how great a speaker he is. Over the course of the year, he has done several good speeches, and one speech in particular, his speech on race that he did early in 2008, inspired a national conversation on the topic. Throughout our history, speeches and writings have had a profound influence on the way our country thinks and feels.

Two really good books are out right now that collect many of the greatest speeches and writings of American history. Ripples Of Hope, edited by Josh Gottheimer, is a collection of the great civil rights speeches in American history. Voices of a People's History of the United States, edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove, similarly takes the voices of dissent against racism, war, economic exploitation and imperialism and collects them in one volume.

As a set, both books are a wonderful overview of the brave voices that have fought for rights of the poor, the marginalized and the ignored in America. One of the things that I responded to the most about two books was how they showcased the connections between the various human rights causes.

A short while ago I checked out from the library and watched Missing, a movie starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek. It’s an intense political thriller by director Costa-Gavras. I did not know anything of Costa-Gavras, so I decided to do a little research on him. Costa-Gavras is one of the most respected directors today, the creator of political thrillers that expose government corruption and deceit.

Here is some information on Costa-Gavras from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Gavras). Constantinos Gavras was born on February 13, 1933 to a poor family in the village of Loutra Iraias, Greece. His father had been a member of the left-wing branch of the Greek Resistance during World War II, and was imprisoned after the war as a suspected communist. Costa-Gavras went to France to study of law in 1951, and in 1956 he studied film. In his early years he worked with the famed French directors Yves Allegret, Jean Giono and Rene Clair. He directed his first film in 1965.

Costa-Gavras is reknowned as a master of the political thriller. Michael Wood, a teacher of English and comparative literature in Princeton, wrote in the booklet accompanying the DVD of Missing:

I am against California’s Proposition 8, which puts a ban in the California constitution on gay marriages. When the ballot measure passed, I was disappointed, but I also thought that over time, people’s attitudes would change. So when I saw protests against the change in the California constitution, I was generally supportive. One of the things that bothered me about the protests, though, is the criticisms I see in some of the protest signs against Mormons, Catholics, and Evangelicals. I think that is a big mistake, for not all Mormons, Catholics or Evangelicals supported Proposition 8. A better way would be to appeal to the more liberal and moderate Christians that belong to each denomination to support the cause of gay marriage.

I've been a member of Crossleft for over a year now. In that span of time I've learned a lot about an alternative more progressive view of Christianity from reading the posts of the regular bloggers. During this past year, Crossleft has had insightful and sometimes heated discussions on the election season, the religious right, cultural issues, poverty issues, and the responsibility of christians to take on the social issues of this country. Every morning after preparing some oatmeal and feeding the cats, I turn on the computer and one of the first sites I start reading is Crossleft. My wife thinks I'm addicted.

Yesterday I read in the papers that Studs Terkel, oral historian and radio disc jockey, died last Friday. He was 96 years old. When I read about it, I had a sad feeling. I first started reading his books when I was in college and these books helped me to learn about the way Americans thought about race, class, and the way they thought about the times they were living. I enjoyed reading the stories of individual Americans, their experiences and insights and their resilience in the face of hard times.

First, some facts. Louis “Studs” Terkel was born May 16, 1912 in New York City. His family moved to Chicago while he was young and he met the workers and activists who shaped his world view. He got the nickname “Studs” from the character Studs Lonigan in the James T. Farrells trilogy of books about an Irish American man in Chicago’s South Side. Terkel graduated from the University of Chicago in 1932, studying law and philosophy. He worked briefly as a federal statistician and found employment in radio through the WPA Writers Project acting in soap operas. In the 1940s, he worked fulltime in radio as a disc jockey and hosted an early t.v. show “Studs Place” set in a fictional bar in Chicago.

Who me? Racially biased? Now way!, or are you? Here are two tests you can take to find out.

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo

http://backhand.uchicago.edu/Center/ShooterEffect

This first site is sponsored by Harvard University via its Project Implicit. It offers you an opportunity to test your biases on a wide variety of tests; gender, weight, religion, skin-tone and the like, 16 in all. I took the Race ('Black-White') test. I won't share my results until others have had a chance to take the test.

The second test is sponsored by the University of Chicago. I won't say much about it, let you take it first. All I do have to say is that you better be a fast study!

Rich

One of the great sources of liberal and left wing thought has always been the leftist magazine and newspaper. I’ve learned a lot about left wing thought and the social problems that are hidden from the general media from periodicals like the Nation, the Progressive, the Catholic Worker, Z Magazine, Mother Jones, and the Progressive Populist, magazines that are available in many libraries.