If They Want Silly, We Should Give Them Silly

If you've been following the wingnut meltdown concerning the question of whether America's newly-elected Congress Critter would take his oath of office with his hand over the Quran, as I have, you'll be fascinated to learn, as I did via a comment over at the Wild Hunt, that America also elected two Buddhists this past election.


In an exercise in utterly missing the point, conservative radio host Dennis Prager recently attacked the wish of Keith Ellison--American's first Muslim Congressman--to be sworn in with a copy of the Qur'an instead of the Bible. Prager seems to be willfully ignorant of both US law and cultural precedent. Nevermind that the Constitution officially enshrines separation of religion and state, that presidents and other officials have sworn on a variety of books (and none at all), or that the point isn't to make someone swear to America's alleged Judeo-Christian culture but to get them to swear on a text so meaningful to them as individuals that they will acquit their governmental responsibilities with propriety. Prager goes so far overboard that he declares Ellison's decision to use the Qur'an to be more damaging to America than the 9-11 attacks and compares it to a hypothetical Nazi Congressman being sworn in on Mein Kampf. It would be easy to take such offensive, uninformed opinions as dismissable if only they weren't representative of a not-small percentage of the American population.

Ellison's act is perfectly legal and so we can expect it will take place without darkness coming at noon or the sudden disintegration of the United States of America. For Buddhists, though, the "debate" does raise some additional questions. Should Buddhists swear on the Bible? If they do, is it meaningful? If they don't, why exactly are they avoiding it? Is there a better alternative? The sight of someone swearing on the entire Buddhist canon would be pretty comical, since it is much larger than the Bible.

Buddhists don't typically have the same sort of relationship with their scriptures that Christians (or Muslims) have with theirs. Most Buddhists do hold the Sutras to be factual and to contain truths so profound as to approach in some sense the idea of revelation--it took a deeply insightful Buddha to penetrate the fog of human ignorance that envelops most of us and speak the truths laid out in the Sutras, truths which range from the commonsense to the mind-bogglingly esoteric. But the scriptures nonetheless do not hold the same central place as the Bible or Qu'ran do. Buddhists take refuge first in the Buddha, second in the Dharma (which is usually understood to be the body of the teachings and the truth they represent, not the texts themselves), and third in the community of teachers and fellow practitioners. Few Buddhists regularly read the canon in the way many Christians and Muslims are intimately familiar with their own holy texts. Buddhism is fundamentally about practice, not text or doctrine.

As it so happens, Mr. Ellison will be joining Congress along with the first two Buddhists to serve. Hank Johnson, the new Representative for Georgia's 4th District, is a member of Soka Gakkai. Soka Gakkai derives from Nichiren Buddhism, whose central text is the Lotus Sutra. This is interesting because Soka Gakkai is one of those few Buddhist groups that focus heavily on one specific Sutra to the near exclusion of others, and elevate that Sutra to a status approaching a sort of living Buddha itself, with practitioners often reading and chanting from it daily. Will Mr. Johnson take an oath on a copy of the Lotus Sutra (and if so, which translation)? Will reactionary pundits be as threatened by the Lotus Sutra as the Qur'an, or is the invective toward Ellison more about Muslim-bashing than about protecting an imagined American cultural foundation?

We should note in passing that one of Japan's largest political parties--New Komeito--is run by Soka Gakkai, who are part of the coalition government. Soka Gakkai is thus no stranger to politics, though outside of Japan few Soka Gakkai Buddhists have risen to posts as prominent as Mr. Johnson's.

The other incoming Buddhist Congressperson is Mazie Hirono of Hawaii's 2nd District. The grapevine says that Hirono is a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist (haven't heard back from her representatives directly yet), the largest form of Buddhism in Japan and Hawaii and the oldest organized Buddhist group in America. As a form of Pure Land Buddhism, the three central Pure Land Sutras and the writings of Shinran are the scriptural heart of her denomination. But Jodo Shinshu (aka Shin) Buddhists are rarely fundamentalist about their scriptures, seeing them more as the wellspring of the concepts of Other Power, humility, and gratitude that drive their Buddhism rather than as objects of devotion or prooftexts. In fact, Hirono has already indicated that she intends to swear in on no text, Bible, Sutra, or otherwise. Is this opting out more or less threatening than the possible decision to swear on something like the Larger Pure Land Sutra?

We should also note that in adding Buddhists to Congress these districts are improving the racial and gender profile of that venerable body as well. Mr. Johnson is African-American, Ms. Hirono is Japanese-American. Both are Democrats. Perhaps the amazing thing is that while white meditation-oriented converts to Buddhism tend to dominate the public face and voice of American Buddhism, when Buddhists finally got a place at the good ol' boys table of Congress, it was the much more representative pools of Asian-American and devotional Buddhism that made their way there. Perhaps this will be a small step in correcting the imbalance of coverage that tends to favor white Buddhist spokespersons over the far larger group of non-white American Buddhists.

Goddess knows what the first elected Wiccan Congress Critter will hold her hands over when she takes the oath of office. I'd suggest a small tray with a rock, a feather, a hot pepper, and a few drops of water -- earth, air, fire, and water -- the four sacred things. Maybe she can cast a circle first and call down Athena and Innana to bear witness. Skyclad. It could be the most fun swearing-in ceremony EVER.