Post 134--A Rose by Any Other Name

Remember the cold I suffered last week? Well, it ain’t over yet. It still has me down and out, something that has hardly ever happened to me. I get one about once a year; it comes and goes quickly and I’m my old self again. Not this time. But I don’t want you to think I’m slacking off. So, another postponement of the third prostitution post and, instead, an easy one that will not take a lot of stamina on my part.

I utilize two prepared documents laying on my desk and I will use some of each. They both report on various situations of persecution. When we think of persecution, we often think of Muslim persecution of Christians and others. Well, that will be one side today. The other side, however, may well surprise you…but let me keep you in suspense for a few more moments.  Just remember Shakespeare’s adage above.  Persecution may come in very different forms and from very different quarters, but it’s still persecution. So, though today’s info will not take much stamina from my reduced stock, it does weigh heavily in me and carrying such burdens takes another form of stamina.

First, a few items of Christians under Muslim persecution—a few from what could take up innumerable tomes, believe  me. These are reported by BarnabasAid, a UK ministry to persecuted Christians all over the world.

Aasia Bibi languishes on death row in Pakistan for years on basis of totally false accusations of blasphemy, a tool used frequently by Pakistani Muslims to take revenge for personal reasons.  Check out her name on the Internet!  In that same country, “Christian girls and women are kidnapped by Muslim men, raped, forcibly converted to Islam and forcibly married to Muslims. Of course that happens in many Muslim countries. Another Pakistani situation is that of bonded Christian laborers in brick kilns. They cannot escape the grueling work for substandard pay. Their cruel bosses trick and exploit them, keeping them in permanent debt. Some Christian children are even held as slaves.

21 brave Christian migrant workers in Libya refused to deny Christ. They will killed by ISIS militants. If I were more computer savvy, I would reproduce a picture of all of them on their knees in orange outfits with masked militants standing behind them, poised to kill them momentarily. 

Ugandan pastor, Umar Mulinde, is a convert from Islam. Muslims three acid in his face. He was terribly burned and lost one eye, but he continues to evangelize and preach boldly.

Nissar Hussain and his wife, from Bradford in the UK, are condemned as apostates. They and their children are persecuted for following Christ. Their home was burned to the ground. Their car was attacked. Nissar was beaten up and hospitalized. Falsely accused to the police, he was detained in a cell for many hours. The same thing happened to his wife. Rejected by church, law enforcement, and society, they continue to follow Christ. They can no longer live in Bradford. Yes, in the UK—and this is by no means the only incident in that country.

And now a totally different scene that at first sight you might not dub “persecution,” but remember that adage…. This time the persecutor is no one less than the US government, and not about religion this time, but about science they don’t like. The following is a long quote:

Picture being an an award-winning scientist -- you've just published your latest findings. And then your government tries to stop you speaking about your research. And when you refuse, you're suspended -- then fired. That's exactly what happened to Jonathan after he discovered a link between bee die-offs and bee-killing pesticides. Now he’s attempting to continue his research in the private sector, and the USDA is STILL harassing him by blacklisting him from USDA-funded research grants and pressuring other scientists to not collaborate with him. It’s time for the USDA to end their attacks on scientific freedom. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is notoriously friendly with giant corporate agribusinesses, and lobbyists for big pesticide companies like Monsanto and Bayer don’t want government researchers looking into the impact of bee-killing pesticides. But rarely have we seen such a blatant and ongoing assault on scientific freedom, even at the USDA. SumOfUs members have donated tens of thousands of dollars to help our friends at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) defend Dr. Lundgren. With our help, Dr. Lundgren has fought back by filing a whistleblower complaint, a scientific integrity complaint, and a federal lawsuit. Dr. Lundgren’s case has gotten enormous press coverage, and he was personally honored with the Joe A. Calloway Award for Civic Courage—a prestigious award for public-interest activism. But the USDA continues to harass Dr. Lundgren, and as long as that continues, it’s sending a chilling effect to researchers everywhere. That’s why we must continue to fight for his right to conduct research freely, without lobbyist interference or government censorship. A rose by any other name….

Post 133—Public Funds for Private Schools

My intention for this post was to finish my mini-series in prostitution. Alas, it’s been almost two weeks since I did the second in the series. The reason for this long gap is that I’ve had a rough time, what with a surgical procedure topped up with a simultaneous bad cold. Since I am not exactly at home in the world of prostitution and need to do some serious thinking before I write the 3^rd in the series, I just don’t have the mental stamina for that. Instead, I will write a post on a subject matter more familiar to me and get back to that series when my mental stamina is up to it, hopefully next week.

The other day, one of my favourite Vancouver Sun columnists, Pete McMartin, blew it as far as I am concerned. He inveighed against private schools. His main emphasis was on the private elite schools but also referred to religious schools. Here’s the URL for the article, in case you want to read it yourself: http://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/pete-mcmartin-this-is-egalitarian-canada-so-why-should-private-schools-get-public-money.

I am going to focus on the religious schools. I sent the following letter to the editor, but doubt it will be published, since they have already published three others on the subject. So, you are invited to read a rejected letter!  Sorry. Here goes, two paragraphs in all:

“Oh, no, not again! More secular dribble about private vs public schools!  McMartin’s (22-10-2016) is a sorry case of secular blindness. Canada is a multi-cultural/religious country, where every religion is supposed to have the freedom to express itself. However secularism insists on defining these religions as private/personal affairs, which they are not and never have been. Secularism thinks it has a monopoly on reason and operates from a neutral platform, both of which are delusions. Religious people want their kind of school as much as McMartin wants his. Imposing his kind on the rest of us is nothing short of discrimination and oppression. We’ve rejected the de facto Anglican monopoly on education in BC long ago and have replaced it with secular monopoly, exchanged one public worldview monopoly for another. Secularism is now the de facto establishment worldview, while it pretends we have no favourite establishment! Nice try!

“The only neutral arrangement is for disestablishment of secular schools in favour of equal funding for all schools that meet the basic provincial educational standards. But that would require secularists to open their eyes, know themselves and admit to the belief system underlying their faith in naked reason—a far cry!” 

Now that letter contains nothing new. The same sentiments have been expressed thousands of times in defence of Christian schools. A hefty book has even been written about the struggle for public funding and the purpose of such schools in BC, but my secular friends, including Pete, seem to have deaf ears. The arguments for such schools are clear, rational, cogent, fair, etc. etc., but they run up against the rationalistic wall secularists have built around themselves. Trump could learn a lesson or two from them about effective walls; they are not brick and mortar; they are ways of thinking in which people imprison themselves.

As Christians, we know the core of our belief. It centers on Christ and then goes on from there. You take out Christ, and the whole thing collapses. Something similar is true for secularists. Among their core beliefs—and it is a belief, not an established or proven fact—is that their perspective is the only rational and neutral one; all others, whether religious or not, are subjective and irrational. That being the case, the only rational and neutral thing to do is to educate our kids within that framework. The objective and rational argument against that position is that, since it has not ever been proved and never will, it, too, is a belief system at the same level as that of the religious. So what is so neutral about it? There ain’t—and Pete and his cohorts better begin to realize that and quit living by their mythical delusion.

But that would exact a heavy price. You take Jesus out of Christianity and you’re left with a blank. You take the sense of a neutral and objective rationalism out of secularism, and they’r stranded, also left with a blank, without any further arguments. That price may be too difficult to pay.

Religious people do not demand that secularists give up their faith; they have a right to it. They just demand that secularism recognize the same right for believers without imposing theirs on the latter.

 Believers, did I say? Yes. We’re all believers, secularists as well as the rest of us.  We all believe in the core of our worldview or philosophy or belief, whatever you want to call it. Secularists, including Pete, you’re welcome into the company of believers!  You are one of us—you believe!  Now quit pestering us and acknowledge our equal right!

Post 132--Biblical Attitude towards Prostitution (1)

The Bible was written in a world where prostitution and other sexual practices were common. Prostitution is a very  ancient practice. It is not dubbed the oldest profession by some for nothing. By Genesis 38 it was already an established custom that served various purposes and vested interests. Female slaves were offering up their bodies to earn money for their masters. Free women entered it as profession, for so it was regarded. Brothels were not uncommon (I Kings 3:16).

Some decades ago, Amsterdam, the capital of my “old country,” was lauded for its progressive attitude towards prostitution, for they regulated it, derived taxes from it and sought to reduce the health problems that usually attend to its practice. Licenses were required from houses of prostitution with the government deriving revenue from it. This was sort of a win-win situation, sort of, probably better than the usual unregulated conditions. But this is nothing new, for similar arrangements have been discovered in the ancient world.

So, a whole culture had developed around the practice that is well circumscribed throughout the Old Testament (OT) especially. Prostitutes might wear special clothing, even perhaps a veil (Genesis 38:14ff; Proverbs 7:10). Of course, the price would vary depending on circumstances and social status.  We read of a loaf of bread (Proverbs 6:26); a kid (Genesis 38:17); a boy could be given away for a harlot’s wage (Joel 3:3; Matthew 4:3). Hebrew father was not to give his daughter to it (Lev 19:29).  Nor could priests marry a prostitute

So, ancient, firmly established and commonly practiced. If you want a fuller dose of it, I would refer you to volumes 1 and 2 of the International Standard Bible Enclopedia—1982 edition by Eerdmans—volume 1, pp. 815-817; volume 2, pp. 616-617.

Though when we think of prostitution, we usually think in terms of women selling their bodies to men, those we dub the “johns.”  But in the world of the OT it seems that male prostitution was as common as the female version. And besides the blatantly commercial version, there was a lot of religion involved in terms of cultic prostitution, including temples.  The cultic in this context does not refer to some extreme version but of mainstream or mainline practice. Prostitution was often closely tied to religion, the opposite of what we might expect. In fact, most of the OT passages dealing with the subject are tied to its cultic practice, though not exclusively. 

So, when the Bible speaks of prostitution, it is not talking about some exotic realm practiced in the shadows. No, much of it was in the open and official, both recognized and approved by the dominant cultures around Israel; in the centre of things instead of in the shadows, not on skidrow as in Vancouver’s Down Town East Side, but on Georgia and Robson Streets and in the churches lining West End streets.

But one of the first things you will notice when you begin searching for the topic in the Bible is its strongly negative attitude towards prostitution. It does not have a single good word to say about it. There are various reasons for that attitude; it’s not just a matter of “kill joy.”  In fact, the very opposite; it’s more a matter of “enable joy,” real joy.  It led—and still leads—to so many ugly problems in society that God wanted to protect His people from this “kill joy.”  Probably the first reason was of a religious nature, since religion is always at the heart of every society—the cult prostitution. "None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a cult prostitute (Deuteronomy 23:17).   The next verse: "You shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog into the house of the LORD your God for any votive offering, for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God.…”  “There were also male cult prostitutes in the land. They did according to all the abominations of the nations which the LORD dispossessed before the sons of Israel (1 Kings 14:24). The cultic practice was an abomination to God because it was a common Pagan practice among the nations around Israel that constantly tempted the people to follow their example, have their “fun” and gradually transfer their loyalty from the God who delivered them from slavery in Egypt to the numerous idols of their neighbours. These were false “gods” that the OT frequently pokes fun of as powerless and of being made of mere wood or stone. These so-called “gods” deceived them, brought them false hope and distorted their values. They represented a culture rejected by God because of all its corruption, cruelties and oppressions.  It was hard for God to protect them when the people themselves were so open to and tempted by these cultural and religious travesties. And so God tried to put a stop to it altogether by simply condemning it in no uncertain language. 

There was another but related reason for the negative attitude towards prostitution. It can lead to social and cultural breakdown, even apart from the religious angle, but time is up and the word limit has been crossed. So, that will mean another post on the subject. See you in 133.   

Post 131—Prostitution: Further Ruminations

Rehabbing Prostitute Culture               

So the City Fathers of Vancouver decided the reputation of former West End (WE) prostitutes needed to be rehabbed. (See Post 130.) Did they consult with us WE residents at all? They may have, but I certainly never heard of such an event, while I usually try to keep on top of such happenings. Such consultations are usually well advertised far ahead of time. I must admit, of course, that I do travel a lot and thus might miss some of these occasions.

Lack of Citizen Involvement

But were there any cries from the current residents that a former injustice had to be undone?  Was the city under local pressure on this matter?  Even if I missed out on whatever public consultations might have taken place, I have noticed nothing of public pressure to restore the honour of prostitutes, let alone thank them for their historic contribution to advancing our “progressive” WE culture. I am sociable; I spend time on the street; I drink tea on the new plaza in front of our building. I heard no such discussion of any kind. It seems the City Fathers just quietly slipped this one over us, possibly alerting some citizen groups they would expect to support such a move, but almost definitely no general public consultation. Though St. Paul’s Anglican Church participated in and approved of the action, I doubt that other area churches such as my church, the large Baptist “cathedral” at Burrard and Nelson, was consulted, or the Guardian Angel Catholic Church on Broughton. Possibly St. Andrews United, for they could be expected to support the move and, perhaps, the Presbyterians.

Citizen Reactions

As could be expected, citizen reactions ran the full gamut from warm embrace to vigorous rejection. One Derek Frew wrote that he initially thought it a case of “blasphemy” that “involved…placing a monument to paganism in front of a Christian church.” But then he had second thoughts urged on him by words attributed to the famous writer G. K. Chesterton: “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God.” Frew concluded that “perhaps not a bad place for it after all” ! (Vancouver Sun, Sept 20, 2016, p. A11).  If nothing else, his has at least a humorous touch to it.

The Earlier Part of the Story

From the other side of the opinion track, we get Ray McNabb’s piece on the same VS page under the title “Memorial to sex workers a wrong-headed affront.”  He’s lived in the WE for 40 years and has always found it “a wonderful area to live in. However, I vividly recall a time when it wasn’t.” That time was the early 1970s when there was so much traffic that he could hardly get onto the street. There was a constant lot of “noise, car horns, car radios booming, shouting, swearing from the traffic. The cars were all headed for Davie Street, where the prostitutes all gathered. Bumper to bumper stuff. Some WE-enders organized a “Shame the Johns” movement. “We were upset and annoyed with the lack of action by the police and city hall….”  A pressure group of citizens, including some politicians, finally was heard and the “court ordered the…hookers out of the WE.”  Traffic was forced away from the regular tours by a mini-park on Jervis and a cul-de-sac at Bute & Burnaby, right in front of my building here. The neighbourhood slowly “returned to normal.”

Then and Now

So, that time there was public pressure on the authorities to stop the sex trade in the WE.  The residents did not want it. It ruined their lives and turned the area into a noisy and chaotic place. Davie village became so infamous that even in Africa, where I lived at the time, I heard about it, just like today the place is world famous for its gay-friendly culture so that gay people from all over the world gather in the WE to participate in the annual week-long activities that culminate in the huge local gay parade. But notice the difference:  infamous vs famous. At that time it was the laughing stock of the province, nation and even world! 

An Affront

And now, McNabb rightly complains that city Counselor Andrea Reimer, judging from the name, a descendant of that morally pristine Mennonite community, refers to the citizens’ action in the 70s as “a tragic injustice.”  Oh, yeah? How about opening up space for that crowd on her street and see if she would still feel that way! Her neighbours would likely drive her out with the rest of the crowd to follow!  If not worse!  “What an affront!” comments McNabb. “She lost my vote”—and mine as well. I am coming close to dubbing her an “idiot!”  Again, something like calling a spade a spade.

The Next Post

I hope to have the time to prepare for the next post to deal with the more overtly Christian perspective on the issue. You will learn that I do not see it all in black and white terms. My prostitute story in Post 130 is illustrative of the tragic circumstances that can drive a person into prostitution. I am far from judging an individual prostitute, but that is very different from elevating the culture of prostitution to the level of desirability to which more communities should aspire.     

Post 130—Prostitution Gone Mainstream?

Out of / in Nigeria

You may remember that I spent 30 years in Nigeria, from 1966-1996.  Even though that’s been 20 years ago now, it still seems like yesterday. Since I left the country, I have written 13 books and many articles on my work there, including Christian-Muslim relations and mission memoirs. Thus, though I was physically away from Nigeria, psychologically, emotionally and mentally I was/am still there. Even today, due to sleep apnea, I dream frequently and by far most of my dreams are still about Nigeria.

During the course of my ministry in Nigeria, I often traveled far and wide. One car trip I stayed overnight in a “local” hotel, places few Caucasians frequent; we prefer the more modern and convenient ones. I chose a local one just to see what they are like and what goes on there. It was not a pleasant or comfortable place to stay, though much cheaper, something that does a Dutch heart like mine good. 

Hymn-singing Prostitute

Like most Nigerian hotels, prostitutes were abundant. I overheard one of them humming and even softly singing Christian hymns. So I screwed up my courage and asked her how she could be singing Christian hymns while practicing prostitution. Her story broke my heart. She was from Ghana, where she had married with two or three children. Her husband abandoned her and her children. She tried every which way to provide for her children but was not successful. In her wanderings she ended up a prostitute in this Nigerian hotel. She could see no alternative.

Jesus and Prostitutes

Her story immediately reminded me of Biblical stories about Jesus and prostitutes. Go to John 7:36-50; 8:1-11 and to Luke 7:236-50.  If you want to read further on the subject in the Bible, just google “Jesus and prostitutes” and you’ll get a very full plate of stories and commentary on these stories. I am an emotional person and had to work hard at containing my emotions at  her story and those about Jesus all at once. This was the first and only time in my life that I consciously sought out a prostitute, even if it was only to satisfy my curiosity about her story. But the Jesus stories told me one thing very clearly: I was in no position to judge her.

Prostitution in Vancouver

The above paragraphs form the backdrop to this and the next post about prostitutes in my city, Vancouver, Canada. (When you write about Vancouver, you always need to specify which Vancouver, since there is a smaller city by that name in the south of the American state of Washington.) 

Apology to Sex Workers

On September 17, 2016, about three weeks ago, the Vancouver Sun featured a story on p. A16 with the heading “West End sex workers get civic apology,” written by Glen Schaefer, with the subheading, “City unveils memorial to trades people driven to margins during 1980s.” The article was flanked by a picture by Ben Nelms I might have included in this article if I had the digital know-how for it. As it is, I can only reproduce the caption underneath the picture. It reads, “Indigenous transgender sex work activist Jamies Lee Hamilton, left, and University of British Columbia professor Becki Ross unveil on Friday a memorial—a retro lamp-post with a red bulb—that has been dedicated to sex-trade workers of Vancouver’s West End Community.” 

Now I live in that part of Vancouver and do remember the stories people told me about the situation in the West End (WE). The entire “industry” had been wiped out by the time we arrived on the scene in 2001. We were still left with quite a contingent of homeless folk and addicts, who were also under pressure to move out of the area, though today they are re-invading the area with a vengeance. Had my wife and I heard of the ceremony ahead of time, we probably would have attended it out of pure curiosity, since it took place within three short blocks from us. On the evening of Sept. 17, we did take a stroll there and, sure enough, there was that new retro lamppost with clear inscriptions and a red light on top, right in front of St. Paul’s Anglican Church. A very respectable memorial at a very respectable residential/church location.

Reversal of Attitudes

How things have changed during these short 15 years that we have lived in the WE.  During that decade and a half the official attitude had been turned upside down from chasing out these prostitutes—and their clients!—to apologizing for that act!  Ross, the UBC sociology specialist in the sex trade, spoke the following:

"The early 1980s marked the full fledged anti-
prostitution crusade to purge sex workers from 
the WE. Davie sex workers built the foundation of 
what would become this city’s first Gay-
neighbourhood, and yet hookers on Davie have 
never been honoured as the former fighters for 
gender, sexual and racial minorities.”

Though I hesitate to “correct” a sociology expert on the topic, my understanding of the background to the WE’s gay culture is that it goes way back to nearly a century ago. I doubt that these prostitutes—and I insist on calling a spade a spade—laid that foundation. Ross will have to persuade me of that.

Maybe, just maybe, more on the subject next time. I will try….

Post 129 –Calvin Helin’s Aboriginal Critique and Solution

Back in Post 123 on August 30, I wrote about Calvin Helin, to whom I referred as one hell of an Aboriginal whom I really want to meet some day.  I sort of half promised that I would one day give you a few summaries from the book he wrote, Dances with Dependency. It is the most honest and most brutal book about Aboriginals I have ever read—and Helin is an Aboriginal. His stuff is from the inside, from the cradle of his own people. 

So, here’s the very first paragraph of text from the Preface, the opening salvo, if you like:

The purpose of this book is to look at practical ways to move indigenous populations forward. Money has been liberally thrown at Indian problems with nominal impact. Neither mainstream nor indigenous politics has had lasting widespread impact on improving the lives of ordinary indigenous folk, no matter how many hyped political announcements and other solutions have been touted. It is time to look at the problems and issues at the broadest level in order to seek general solutions that might be tailored to the different circumstances of Tribes now.

I expect every person of goodwill will shout an affirmative “Amen!” to this opening salvo. “Money liberally thrown” with little impact—that sounds like the sad case of Vancouver’s Down Town East Side, where a million is being spent every day with little or no impact over the years.

Moving on to p. 25, after he gives a short vivid description of the traditional and comparatively sophisticated economics and politics of his people along the coast of British Columbia, he writes:

My father was a commercial fisherman and a fine one. Though he had made a good life for our family, I was well aware that life in an Aboriginal Indian reserve had a very sinister side to it. Such a bad environment has persisted so long in most Aboriginal communities that many Aboriginal  people have, over generations, been socialized into thinking that this widespread dysfunction is normal. Imagine a situation where tragically high youth suicide rates, gross unemployment figures, frequent banana republic-style corruption, and persistent abuse—both substance and physical—prevail, and you might begin to understand what life is like on many Aboriginal reserves.

Towards the end of Chapter 1, Helin presents us with a general journey that Aboriginals must embark upon with the concrete details worked out in the rest of his book. Here are some of his phrases and statements from pp. 36 and 39: 

“Aboriginal citizens must…squarely face the Industry of Non-Aboriginal Hucksters, and ‘consultants,’ and those Aboriginal politicians who are openly profiting from this sea of despair and poverty. In spite of what they say, this ‘Indian Industry’ has no real interest in changing a system from which they are profiting.”

“the unkind hands of the welfare trap.”

Families are falling “as casualties of a fatal ‘welfare syndrome’—one that is literally stealing the lives and hopes of our future generation….”

“We must shake off the apathy of what has become an all too comfortable ‘cloak of welfare’….”

With reference to the economic opportunities available to his people, he writes, “To exploit these opportunities will require a fundamental change in the dependency mindset of Aboriginal people. For lasting solutions, decisions have to come from Aboriginal people themselves. Aboriginals have to consciously choose a more beneficial path than the dependency course they are currently on—and have the conviction to live with the consequences.”

The pursuit of economic opportunities before them, “could lead to the Holy Grail of rediscovered independence and self-reliance. It is time to re-take control of our lives from government departments, bureaucrats and the Indian Industry.”

Well, if you think the above sentiments and observations are racist, coming as they do at this point from a Caucasian writer, you’ll have to take it up with Helin himself, a man with all of his roots deeply entangled with Aboriginal history and culture—and, I should emphasize, full of passionate love for his  people. I suppose you could push this a bit farther by saying that my choosing to quote all this and bring it to a wider public is racist. Well, go ahead, if that makes you feel better.

I have long been concerned with the state of the Aboriginal people in Canada. In fact, when I first returned to Canada as a “retired” person after 43 years, I actually hoped to do a serious study on the subject and publish its result. Because of my life’s work, I ended up focusing on Islam and wrote a series of eight books along with quite a number of articles on that subject, all of which are available to you free of charge on the Islamica page of my website < SocialTheology.com.> So, I never got around to Aboriginal issues, but I have a large archive of Aboriginal articles collected for that purpose. If any reader is interested in that archival material, contact me. I am prepared to donate them it of charge to any party who is seriously involved in Aboriginal affairs, especially Aboriginals themselves, even more especially to Helin, who has become a hero of mine. If any reader knows him, please draw his attention to my offer and to these posts in this blog.