I’m traveling, so blogging may be unusually light, or odder than usual.
Back in ancient history (i.e, June 2012), a German court decided that babies might not lawfully be circumcised. The linked article attributes the ruling to concern for the child’s right to bodily integrity, and language in the decision supports that.
But the court also claimed that circumcision “runs contrary to the interest of the child to later choose his religious affiliation,” which may resonate even more loudly with a modern voluntarist view of life. One of the New Atheists, Richard Dawkins (I believe), fulminated that it makes him crazy to hear people refer to a “Christian baby” or the like.
Even some of the critics of the German decision seemingly assumed such a view. Joshua Spinner, an American Rabbi, said:
“I’m a circumcised male, I expect that I have the right to become a Catholic or Protestant or Buddhist or atheist if I choose to today. But what the court is saying is that if I am circumcised I am a Jew,” he said. “There’s a very dark and very illiberal view of what this mark does on the individual.”
I certainly agree with him that circumcision doth not a Jew irrevocably make. I could cite New Testament scriptures, but they would be mis-citations, because the New Testament authors had “Judaizing” legalism, not individualism, in their sights when they fired their volleys.
But in a sense, circumcision does choose the child’s religion. JFK famously (and cravenly, and dishonestly) attributed his Roman Catholicism to an “accident of birth.” It was dishonest because, like Rabbi Spinner, he could have become Protestant (heck, most American Catholics are Protestants today), or atheist, or Muslim, or even Jewish. It’s a free country.
But Baptism does mark a child as Christian, too, and that’s as it should be. That the state should impose on all parents a demand that they not initiate their children into the parents’ religion presupposes a deeply irreligious view of what it means to be a parent, a family, and even a community, with obligations and relationships that aren’t chosen, but that can’t be abandoned without some legitimate feeling of betrayal.
Bad news: 2 hour flight delay, due to mystery maintenance.
Good news: 2 more hours to marvel at Renée Fleming’s improbably excellent jazz/torch song album, Haunted Heart. She sings in a remarkably low register with exquisite sense of when to linger on a voiced consonant or to play the countless other tricks that make for great singing on that style of music.
If you like soulful jazz and torch songs, send up a prayer of thanksgiving that it’s still available.
Renée Fleming and Bryn Terfel doing show tunes isn’t half bad, either.
* * * * *
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 
There’s an important difference from baptism. Baptism – the physical part – wipes off with a paper towel. Circumcision does not. Sikhism values an intact body, not even cutting the hair. Some devotees of Shiva use their foreskins in their worship. (I’ll spare you the details, but they are shown on the Travel Channel after warnings.) A man circumcised in infancy in the name of a religion that did not take (Islam does it too) may find it harder to feel at home in, or to practise, the religion of his own choice.
It is a bit disingenous to claim that it is “dark and illiberal” to say circumcision marks a man as of one religion when he wants to be something else, when that was a part of its expressed purpose when it was done.
It would be oppressive of the state to forbid parents from teaching children about their religion. It would be desirable if they did not brainwash their children that theirs is the only true religion and all others are heresies worthy of death. The golden mean lies somewhere between. Cutting parts of their children’s bodies off in the name of their religion is a step too far.
Your view, although well expressed (I assume from your “Intactivism” site that this is a big deal to you) amounts to criminalizing full initiation of Jewish or Muslim boys into their ancestral religion on the off-chance that they might some day feel themselves, say, less than fully Sikh as a consequence, or might lack the right stuff to to honor Shiva. Their parents can only teach a deracinated view of religion (“Now mind you, Abdul: this is just our opinion, and it’s no truer than any other religious opinion”) and then hope that their children, as adults, will choose theirs instead of another or none at all. Technically, the parents shouldn’t cut their kids’ hair on the chance that they’ll want to go Sikh later.
That’s not neutral: it imposes a voluntarist view of religion, the Christian version of which is Baptist, and excludes a more organic view.
People may just grow up to be Jews or Musllims who don’t believe in circumcision, and who resent that it was done to them. The “deracinated” view of religion is of course the truth – at least for all religions except the One True Religion, and your guess is as good as mine which that one is. Hair grows back. Genitals don’t.
What you call an “organic view” (I saw bottles of “organic water” the other day – the word is now meaningless) of religion is the reverse of the freedom of religion guaranteed by the US Constitution and the Unversal Declaration of Human Rights. As you said, it’s a free country, so you share my “voluntarist” view. Cutting parts off children’s genitals makes them, and hence the country, less free.
(Genital cutting is only a big deal to me because people make a big deal of their “right” to do it to non-consenting people. In my ideal world, it would be nothing but an outlandish option for adults, like tongue slitting. If a religion – Satanism, say – demanded that, would parents have the right to do it to children?)
1. A Jew or Muslim who doesn’t believe believe in circumcision is a bit oxymoronic inasmuch as those traditions have a determinate content that includes circumcision as an initiatory rite. We have the same sort of pseudo-Christianity, where people roll their own religions, each with a character named “Jesus” in them, but in radical discontinuity with history. I call them Krustians when I’m feeling uncharitable. I don’t let their fantasies control my behavior or my views, and I’ll not let hypothetical self-styled Jews or Muslims who oppose circumcision control my views of sound public policy.
2. You’re quite wrong about the Constitution. It limits governmental action, not individual or familial action.
3. We’re in a voluntarist legal climate in the sense that there’s no legal sanction for changing religion. That’s a fact, and I’ve availed myself of it twice, changing Christian traditions in my late 20s and again in my late 40s.
That a voluntarist legal climate is an unmixed blessing, though, if that’s your view, is an opinion I don’t share because it further reduces all human interactions to voluntary contracts.
4. If Satanists wanted to slit their children’s tongues, I have little doubt that we’d forbid it because (a) tongue slitting offends our collective conscience and (b) it’s Satanists, for whom we also have deep revulsion. I could imagine a culture in which circumcision was viewed with the revulsion we feel for that or for female genital mutilation, or for throwing widows on funeral pyres, and where the revulsion was backed by law. I will resist those who try to turn us into such a culture, and it would be false to say that in such a culture one was free to practice Judaism or Islam.
5. Finally, I can’t entirely ignore that there are arguable health benefits to circumcision, of which you’re well aware, and a parent’s religious motive ought not to invalidate an otherwise healthy practice.
I doubt that I’ll respond further. The last word likely will be yours so long as it’s not abusive.
1. You are committing the “No true Scotsman” fallacy. Here are contact details for more than 80 celebrants of Brit Shalom, more than 40 of them rabbis, one a professor of religious studies. Are they not Jews?
2. I’m not in the USA. US people constantly use the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion to justify cutting parts of the genitals off babies. I just want to counter that. But we can stick with the UDHR which does limit individual and “familal” (I assume you refer to the nuclear family. Here in Polynesia the defintion is extended.) action.
3. You’d need to be more specific about what human interactions you don’t think should be voluntary. I think cutting part of someone else’s genitals off crosses a line.
4. (a) Yet adults are free to slit their own tongues without “offending our collective conscience” (or else I’m missing that part – I think it’s bizarre and ugly, like a lot of other personal adornment, but not forbiddable). So why is “our collective conscience” so organ-specific where children are concerened? (b) Speak for yourself. Do you know anything about Satanism except what its enemies have told you? You should at least know that its basic precept begins “An ye harm none… ” which seems a good start to me, and better than some more popular religions.
You need not imagine “a culture in which circumcision was viewed with … revulsion”; that is how it is getting to be in the developed world outside the USA. My own GP hated doing them – he says all doctors do – and was glad to give it up, and it is now hard to find a doctor willing to do it.
You seem to think that freedom to practise religion trumps all other freedoms. My religion, Noearsism, require nobody within a metre of me to have any ears. How do you do? Hold still, won’t you?
5. The health benefits are highly arguable – slight reductions in rare diseases of late onset that can be better prevented by other means or treated as they occur – when they are not completely bogus, They are ignored in the the devloped world outside the USA with no ill-effects on public health. (Of course, where there is a pressing medical need and no feasable alternative, there can be no objection, but outside that USA that is very rare indeed.) Germany and Tasmania are both contemplating forbidding all but religious infant (male) genital cutting. Clearly the claimed health benefits have made no impression.
Abusive? Have a nice day.
1. I will leave to whatever authorities there may be in Judaism to determine the bona fides of Brit Shalom fans. It’s not my job to judge that.
3. I was speaking in realistic and somewhat sarcastic terms when I said “we … have deep revulsion for Satanists.”
It sounds like resistance is futile. All the right-minded people are opposed to circumcision. No true Scotsman would support it.
1. Sorry, I left off the conctact details: http://tinyurl.com/britshalom
Thank you for this. Fascinating credentials and affiliations:
* Secular Jewish vegvayzer/madrikh/Leader
* Kehillat Israel Reconstructionist Congregation
* Kahal Am – The Humanistic Jewish Community of San Diego
* Pan-Denominational Rabbi
* free lance life-style officiant
* Certified Leader, Leadership Conference of Secular & Humanistic Jews
* Humanist Chaplain at Harvard University
* Omanaya (Jewish ritual artist and spiritual guide)
* Certified Humanist Clergy
And, be it noted, “Not all the celebrants listed are opposed to Brit Milah [circumcision]. However, they are all committed to providing service to families unwilling to circumcise their sons, by officiating at Brit Shalom ceremonies.”
You just contradicted your own 1) by judging their bona fides. I don’t know how many actually are not opposed to Brit Milah, but that caveat was added for the sake of one. Sure, there are no Orthodox on the list (that we know of), but give it time.
Let me remind you and whoever else may be interested how we reached this point:
* Hugh7 on September 19, 2012 at 6:25 pm: “People may just grow up to be Jews or Musllims WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN CIRCUMCISION, and who resent that it was done to them.” (AllCaps added)
* readerjohn on September 19, 2012 at 7:50 pm: “I’ll not let hypothetical self-styled Jews or Muslims WHO OPPOSE CIRCUMCISION control my views of sound public policy.” (AllCaps added)
* Hugh7 on September 20, 2012 at 4:20 pm: “Here are contact details for more than 80 celebrants of Brit Shalom, more than 40 of them rabbis, one a professor of religious studies. Are they not Jews?”
* readerjohn on September 20, 2012 at 8:35 pm: “I will leave to whatever authorities there may be in Judaism to determine the bona fides of Brit Shalom fans. It’s not my job to judge that.”
* readerjohn on September 20, 2012 at 9:08 pm (after clicking through and reviewing the list): “Thank you for this. Fascinating credentials and affiliations” [followed by representative samples and the Brit Shalom website’s own disclaimer that not all are opposed to circumcision, which takes us back to your claim about “Jews …. who don’t believe in circumcision.”]
That last item “judged” nothing. It laid out the facts for others who might think those credentials dubious – you, for instance, who seem to think they mark the participants as outliers.
Your final “Sure, there are no Orthodox on the list (that we know of), but give it time” is a cleaned up version of the empty “argument” that “history will vindicate me.” That’s the gist as well of your separate comment, about literal Scotsmen, not rhetorical fallacies, which comment I accordingly did not approve. The only possible response is to point out the hollowness or to say “No, no! History will vindicate ME!”
And that is too close to flame wars for my taste, so I’m going to close comments (if I can find the button to do so.)