"I have been but little in," said Ninian hastily...

Something, I've now forgotten what, tipped me off to Gentleman's Agreement, a 1947 film directed by Elia Kazan and starring Gregory Peck and Dorothy McGuire. It's a movie about a journalist writing an article about antisemitism for a major news magazine who decides that he can get "a new angle" by living as a Jew and experiencing prejudice firsthand.

In one of the early scenes, the commissioning editor says that he doesn't want just another story full of "facts and figures" or a piece about "the crackpot factor", but a story about the wider effects of antisemitism, focusing on people without overt prejudice, "people who would never give a dime to Gerald L. K. Smith."

Now, obviously that reference was supposed to be instantly recognizable to a 1947 audience, but it meant nothing to me. Obscure asides like that are, for me, like waving a feathery toy in front of an energetic cat, so it was off to Wikipedia for info.

Gerald L. K. Smith, it turns out, was a nasty piece of work. A Wisconsin minister, he moved to Louisiana for his wife's health and became involved with Huey Long's Share Our Wealth movement (SOW). After Long's death, he continued running SOW and moved ever rightward, allying first with the odious Father Charles Coughlin and later with the American Nazi William Dudley Pelley. Smith spent time in prison during Word War Two for an espionage conviction. He ran for president three times in the 1940s and 1950s, receiving about 1,800 votes (1944), 80 votes, (1948), and 8 votes (1956).

He retired to Arkansas in the 1960s, where he planned to build a life-size recreation of ancient Jerusalem as part of a religious theme park. Though the park was never built, its centerpiece, a giant statue of Christ, was completed, as well as an amphitheatre when Smith produced a passion play modeled on those of medieval Germany (first staged in 1968, the play still runs every year from May to October).

All this from an aside in the tenth minute...

ETA: And here's another forgotten racist that gets mentioned: John E. Rankin.

And another: Theodore G. Bilbo.

I followed a link to a brief piece by a British Army padre who's been serving in Afghanistan. It was a story, a couple of stories, about the men he's serving with, but it ended with these observations about the value of conversation and reflection.

I have seen too often people’s lives held captive by a single event. It can be that a few minutes, or seconds even, can be the reference point from which they view themselves and the world, far beyond the reach you might expect.

Talking about it seems to help though; friends and colleagues can bring a greater, wider perspective to something that could otherwise become all-encompassing.

Sometimes the talk can turn to God and faith and purpose, but often it doesn’t. The process, however, is cathartic and always worthwhile. It is a funny thing, but in a world that seems so enthusiastic about the gossip of ‘he said this’ and ‘she said that’ and of the cringing details of celebrities’ lives, I wonder whether what we could really do with is talking a little bit more about our own experiences; how we have seen things that affect us; how perhaps our perspective is not the only one; how we feel as a result.

It is the essential process of knowing and being known, of relationship, of feeling what we do and who we are is valued; which is, of course, also at the heart of a living, active faith.

I am a great fan of Dorothy Sayers', but I have never read her book The Psychology of Advertising.

This quote makes me think perhaps I should:

"Those who prefer their English sloppy have only themselves to thank if the advertisement writer uses his mastery of the vocabulary and syntax to mislead their weak minds."

ETA: And a good quote for our presidential candidates, from Why Work?:

"The Church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly—but what use is all that if in the very center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever came out of the carpenter's shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could anyone believe that they were made by the same hand that made Heaven and earth."

And another from The Dogma Is the Drama:

"Somehow or other, and with the best of intentions, we have shown the world the typical Christian in the likeness of a crashing and rather ill-natured bore—and this in the name of one who assuredly never bored a soul in those thirty-three years during which he passed through the world like a flame."

I shall be celebrating the preservation of Oor Gude King Jamie Sixt an First wi' a wee dram and my remaining sparklers tonight. I meant to make parkin for the office, but I didn't have time...

And while we've done lots of bad things to prisoners during the GWOT, a reminder of the cruel and unusual punishment you used to get *after* torture and trial.

("The Execution of Guy Fawkes" by Nicolaes Jansz Visscher courtesy of the "Wars of Louis Quatorze" Blogspot.)

With thanks to wcg, a link to a quiz based on the Pew Center poll questions on religion.

Without giving away anything in case people want to try their hand, I have to say that I think 15 questions are too few to really get a grasp of what people know about so many different religions. The original survey (a PDF of which can be found here) asked a several more, some substantive and some questions to help characterise response categories on other factors. But, still, the number of questions and the way some of them are only tangentially related to religion make me feel this is a weak poll. For instance, how much does it tell one about the public's knowledge about a religion to know whether it is predominant in a given country or not? TO me that indicates something about how much the respondent knows about the *country*, but not much about what he or she knows of the religion in question.

That said, I am enough of a social science geek to wish I had access to the data files and time to play with them...

Thanks to my friend Justin for this update.

Scholarly conference to address geocentrism

I especially like the testimonial from the ever-so-authoritative "(Anonymous, Ph.D., MIT)"

a thoughtful article about having the courtesy to respect others' beliefs

Thanks to vonandmoggy for posting the link. ( Read more... )

I confess the title is not original, but copied from an article by Richard Hughes in History Review in 2008. I've only read bits of the article, but I had decided to write a piece about Prynne and say the title while Googling, and I was so taken with it that I couldn't resist it. ( How appropriate to put a 'cut' here )

Slept fairly well, and I didn't feel too boggled by the time shift. Had just enough time to eat breakfast, shower, and get to the early service at UUCSS.

I find their services very moving, as if there is something that's speaking to me very deeply there. And I think their minister is a tremendously good speaker and a very thoughtful writer. She's very good at, as it were, showing you the tools and materials that she plans to build her theme from, and then constructing it carefully, smoothly, with humour (where that's appropriate), respect, honesty, and strength. On my last two visits, and on my former ones, I've always found her to be compelling, providing a vision and inspiring people to rise to meet it, to examine themselves or to help others (or both). Today's sermon was no exception; she spoke about how difficult times give people (both as individuals and as communities) the opportunity and the challenge to measure their resilience in the face of adversity, learn how to build it, and use what strength and skill they have to help themselves and others.

I also find that her readings and sermons introduce me to writers I might never otherwise have encountered. One example from today was a passage she quoted from Theodore Roethke, from his poem In A Dark Time. And she also quoted from Forrest Church, another UU minister who, I find now I've briefly Googled him and read a couple of his sermons, has a lot of thoughtful and valuable things to say. And last week she quoted a passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Divinity School Address", which reminded me among other things that there are a lot of good writers, far too many, whose names I know but whose words I am unfamiliar with.

I find UU in general seems to meet a lot of my philosophical needs while presenting me with challenges to be more tolerant and open to other ideas (a challenge I could probably benefit from). Certainly I find it very inspiring and provides me with encouragement to learn, think, and a venue for prayer that isn't as problematic as other religions I've participated in. And UUCSS seems to be both a fairly friendly place and one where the congregation is both on a similar wavelength to mine and quite diverse in age (as much as I loved TRS, I was almost always the only person other than the rabbi under the age of 40--of course it helps that I've grown so much older, given that *I'm* not under 40 any longer. ;-) And (of course I had to check!) there are congregations in Edinburgh and Glasgow (as well as Aberdeen and Dundee, and even Orkney!)

OK, lunch, then back to painting little men!

Gmail advertising gives you all sorts of things.