A doubter’s Christmas story

I am a doubter and a religious skeptic. A few days ago I shot video of a Presbyterian Christmas service. As I entered the church with my equipment I was greeted warmly by many in the congregation. I returned their greeting in kind. Truth be told, I was happy to be there because the officiant was a friend of mine and this video was going to help her get ordained. It was a very moving service, different from the Catholic Mass I grew up experiencing. There was a time for people in the congregation to ask for prayers or give thanks for good fortune. There was beautiful music and many moments of good humor and laughter. Topping it all off was a Christmas pageant in which the children of the community dressed as the familiar biblical characters and recited lines from the Nativity story. Much of it brought a tear to my eye, I am not ashamed to admit. As a well-known doubter you might think that I would have found all of this distasteful. Not at all. The warmth and love in the room was something to be celebrated and I was glad to be a part of it. But, also being the filmmaker that I am, I couldn't help but notice that the moments in which the people in that room glowed most brightly were the moments of interaction between them. As I have noticed in my own Catholic upbringing, the reading and analysis of scripture is often met with polite attention, if not actual boredom. And this seemed to be the case here as well. The moments that were most moving to everyone, and the moments which brought little gasps of joy from the people there, were not the reminders of Jesus' birth and suffering but the little things that people did for each other. [more . . . ]

Continue ReadingA doubter’s Christmas story
Read more about the article Wikileaks and Official Secrets
Image by Andrei Blinushov at Picasaweb (creative commons)

Wikileaks and Official Secrets

“Turn yourself in, Julian Assange.” (Headline in Slate, Dec. 6, 2010) Wikileaks founder Julian Assange surrendered to British authorities December 7th, 2010. “Turn yourselves in, Federal Employees.” (Headline in next week’s news?) The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo to agency heads December 3rd, which may result in an order forbidding Federal employees from downloading or viewing Wikileaks documents. How a government responds to the illegal release of its classified documents is predictable. How an individual struggles over whether to release classified documents is anything but predictable. Christopher Hitchens wrote the following about his own experiences in relation to Britain’s Official Secrets Act.

A democratically elected British Parliament had enacted an Official Secrets Act, which I could be held to have broken. Would I bravely submit to prosecution for my principles? (I was later threatened with imprisonment for another breach of this repressive law, and it was one of the reasons I decided to emigrate to a country that had a First Amendment.)

The 1980s BBC sitcom Yes Minister laid bare the inner workings of the British government through the twin prisms of English humor and focused insight. “Jobs for the Boys,” an episode that mentioned the Official Secrets Act, began by revealing Sir Humphrey Appleby’s need to cover-up a scandal surrounding some of his past financial misdealing. Sir Humphrey was the supremely self-serving, Permanent Secretary to the Department of Administrative Affairs (DAA). [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingWikileaks and Official Secrets