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Toeing the secular line: On the Easter Bunny, Hell and Crucifixion

Before you get to your Easter ham, we have to get through the solemn Passion period, the holiest week of the religious year. 

Then you can wash your hands of everything.

Sorry to break it to you, but you will kindly notice there is no Easter Bunny present at the Last Supper.

Personally, I like the Easter Bunny and all he/she represents in that euphemistic parallel world that honors the coming of Spring. 

In the prolific bunny, the ears may be large and the teeth cry out for orthodontia, but we really have the perfect symbol for life and renewal. 

It’s just not very spiritual.

Deep in the throes of an economic recession, with no real end in sight and the partisans bickering about bottom lines and Donald Trump’s hairline, it doesn’t’ surprise me if  you are yearning for something slightly more spiritual than an Easter Bunny can provide.

As a journalist, I’m conditioned to keep things in the Easter Bunny realm, unless I’m doing a story about  organized religion. When I covered Papal visits to America, I didn’t have to get into whether there was really a God. Or if Martin Luther was re ally right.  I just had to report on the guy in the Pope-Mobile.

That’s the standard approach by the media: Keep God out of it. What’s he got to do with anything.  We’re covering humans and what they say.  God?  Show me two sources.

It’s an important distinction. Reporters are information providers, not missionaries. And we’re respectful of the line that keeps the Holy Spirit on one side and Lady Gaga on the other.

Constitutionally, that’s what America guarantees. You’re free.  You can be God-fearing or God-less, no problem. We keep God out of our policy debates. And we keep him out of our reporting.

Reporters only pray when deadline approaches. Just like athletes only thank God when they win. (I didn’t hear anyone on the Knicks after losing by a point to the Celtics on Palm Sunday say, “O God, why have you forsaken me?”)

But Easter and Christmas are different for the media when it comes to approaching religious ideas, mostly because this is the time when even the non-believing believers start to believe.  It’s a spiritual migration. 

HELL

This year the mainstream media’s  most spiritual reflection apppears to be Time Magazine’s  “Is Hell Dead?” 

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,2065080,00.html

Asking if there is a hell  is really just another way of asking the age old question ,” Is there a God?”

You can’t have one without the other, right?

That a young evangelical reverend like Rob Bell has a best selling book, “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who ever Lived,” is a nice timely excuse for some kind of re-examination.

I actually like the idea that if the churches were full of love and not guilt, fear, and repression, we’d see more people at churches.

Bell is proof of that. He’s  packing in the people.  And more conservative pastors  consider some of what he says to be  pure heresy. But someone wants what he’s selling. 

The questions he raises are worth discussion.  If there is no hell, does that mean there are no consequences? 

If hell is the place for punishment, and it didn’t exist, wouldn’t that be like closing down Rikers Island?  If that happened we could save money, make the “bad guys” stay at home, give the cops more to do.

OK, maybe we really could use a hell.

But does hell act as a deterrent?

Does it make you want to commit fewer ill-advised acts?  Or do you even think about it at all?

For a minute, let’s say you are a hell believer. Would it be terribly disappointing if in the afterlife, you show up all virtuous, and then it’s revealed that there wasn’t a real place called hell after all.

“Hell? “a voice would say. “That’s a placebo.”

Ah, didn’t you know, you were in “hell” when you committed that act?

Why would God want to create a new place just for you and your bad-acting kind?

Besides, Hell isn’t green. Too big a carbon foot-print.  Without it, think of God’s energy savings.

If you’re non-Christian, all this hypothesizing may make you feel superior as a Buddhist or Muslim, or perhaps an atheist.  Or not.

But whatever your perspective, an examination of conscience, a spiritual tune-up is always worthwhile. (Don’t worry. No one is trying to inculcate. No missionary will call.)

A HANDS ON APPROACH TO CATHOLICSM

For me, I am a traditionalist in the organized realm. I’m a Filipino American, and the Spanish got there first.  I am a Catholic.

As a reporter, I don’t know if there’s a hell or heaven. But as a believer, I have faith in the teachings that  there is a there there.

Given that, here’s my secret Spring Break/Holy Week  fling:

I’d like to go to the Philippines to see a crucifixion. Maybe even my own.

Call it “Extreme Catholicism,” though I’m really more curious than passionate about driving some nails into my hands.

One guy Ruben Enaje is practically a professional. He’s been nailed 24 years in a row. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5RbuHsbfSI&feature=fvwrel

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYKGPANGk7k&feature=related

 It’s good to see that in the Philippines, crucifixion is an equal opportunity thing.

Given that the Church will frock a man, but not frock a woman, to crucify a woman is practically a sign of progress. Imagine you can have his and her crucifixions, maybe even re-do your marital vows on the cross.

Of course, if I go, I’d have some practical concerns. For example, wouldn’t you want to make sure the nails are sterilized first? Maybe bring your own nails?

And I’m not sure if I’d want to go all-nail  the first time around anyway. It may be better to gradually take it in. Perhaps a little back-whipping self-flagellation (not the metaphorical kind) then do a cross on a subsequent trip.

What do you think? Maybe next year we can organized a “Passion Pilgrimage.”

Too real?

Well,  now you know why God created the Easter Bunny.

blog, diversity, journalism, news, politics, race

Diversity’s recession-era failure: The numbers show Unity was cash cow for all, but black journalists wanted more

As a journalist who attended every Unity and believed in the mission, I was concerned about NABJ pulling out of Unity. And I admit to being surprised I didn’t hear outcry from others.

Maybe people don’t care anymore.

 In recession era diversity, where the buck matters more than the principle,it’s just not the same.

But a piece from the Poynter Institute sheds a little  light on why no one on the Unity board is all that broken up about the black journalists’ withdrawal.

Everyone made money.  

It’s just that NABJ wanted what it saw as its fair share.

According to the Poynter Institute story,  NABJ chose solvency over solidarity.  But it really wasn’t going broke. It wanted more money for extra programs and felt it should get more out of the Unity cash cow.

To me that’s a bit selfish when you’re talking about the kind of non-profit mission Unity was on.

Beyond that, Unity’s revenues were pretty healthy, about $6 million from the 2008 convention, mostly coming from registration (1.8 million), sponsorships ($2.5 million), and the career fair ($1.4 million).

Here’s the revenue split based on the Poynter story’s numbers:

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ),  $427,259.

The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA ),$396,011.

The Native American Journalists Association (NAJA), $143,197.

NABJ felt that it deserved even more since it brought in 53 percent of paid registrants and 38 percent of the estimated 7,500 attendees. It amounted to $574,407.

With NABJ gone, the revenue split won’t be as robust. But the organizations working together still should make more than they would with individual conventions. That windfall has always helped to save all the journalism groups that have battled huge deficits in recent years.  

Given that,  what do you make of NABJ’s compromise ideas on redoing the revenue share? One of the proposals would actually hurt the smaller groups.

Doesn’t sound like NABJ was all that into solidarity from the beginning.

Still organizations are being very political.

“AAJA is disappointed that NABJ has withdrawn from Unity,” said AAJA President Doris Truong during a morning conference call today. “ But now we have to move forward. We wanted NABJ to stay in the alliance but we wish them well. We will never close the door to NABJ.”

So NABJ is gone, and all that’s left is a bigger share of a smaller pie for the journalism groups that remain.  Not the end of the world, but the end of something.

Unity was the biggest model for how real diversity could work in America.

When Unity fails to unite, that’s sad.

blog, diversity, journalism, news, politics, race

Negative Diversity: Shame on NABJ for pulling out of Unity, the coalition of journalists of color

I was still in shock when I first posted on the National Association of Black Journalists’ pull out of Unity and the 2012 convention in favor of doing their own thing.

Now we learn from the Maynard Institute’s Richard Prince that the discussion which began last December included some significant concessions to NABJ, including giving the organization veto power on the Unity board.

Not good enough it seems.

NABJ wanted more. But how can you have a real coaltion if one partner wants to be more equal than the other?

This sort of thing happens all the time. Frankly, it’s ‘s a damn shame that Delaware has the same two votes in the Senate as my residence state, California. But that’s fair. You don’t have California pulling out and starting its own country. The balance,of course, is the House. 

It is somewhat comforting to know that there was some attempt at Unity to recognize NABJ’s size among the other participants, and give it more power.  Veto power is one hell of a compromise.

But it wasn’t enought to keep the black journalists from deciding to go off and do their own thing.

Just business? Sure, but  the bigger effort is about the  fight for racial equity  here. That’s never been about dollars and cents. Unity was America’s role model.

Maybe this is recession-era diversity taking over, where it’s every group for itself. The greater good be damned.

If that’s the case, it’s a sad day for minorities in America. 

And a good day for the status quo oppressors wherever they exist.  NABJ’s actions are exactly what those oppressors want to see, and the minority journalists are doing the work for them.  

It’s self-inflicted divide and conquer.

And the minorities lose, again.

blog, diversity, journalism, news, race

NABJ, the National Association of Black Journalists, pulls out of 2012 Unity convention: Not a good sign for coalitions of color

Read my column at  http://www.aaldef.org/blog  to see why it’s a shock that the black journalists group has pulled out of Unity.

Established in 1994 to be a prime example of diversity in action, Unity’s biggest accomplish was just being there every four years, thousands of journalists of color all together.

When NABJ says it wants more of cut from the big confab that Unity puts on simply because it’s bigger, that’s a bad sign not just for diversity advocates in journalism but for any coalitions based on minority groups of varying size.

Who gets the bigger say? What happened to the greater good?

Greater what? NABJ essentially is saying don’t take it personally bleeding hearts. It’s just business.

And when the largest group pulls out of Unity, what are you left with? 

Nether unity, nor Unity.

Emil Guillermo's amok commentary on race, politics, diversity…and everything else. It's Emil Amok's Takeout!

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