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One Vote

Tuesday 22 October 2002

Sunday 27 October 2002 saw the equivalent of mid-term elections in Poland. Locally, it was time to elect a new mayor. Unlike probably any other contest in the nation, there were only two candidates to mayor.

Murzyniak

First was the incumbent, Mariusz Murzyniak. Some said he was the favorite because of his experience in the office. Yet he’s an “outsider,” hired by the previous mayor and the appointed mayor when the then-mayor was elected to the Sejm (Polish Congress) a few years ago.

Jazowski

His challenger was Bogdan Jazowski, a history teacher in the high school and director of the middle school. Some said he was the favorite because of his native status. Yet his lack of political experience have counted against him.

Most of the people I asked about it during the weeks running up to the election said there was no clear favorite. That night, after the election while the votes were being counted, a friend who’d been in the office where they were counting said it was too close to call.

The results the next day are somewhat staggering. “Too close to call” is a ridiculous understatement. Murzyniak, the incumbent, won by a single vote. One vote. It seems almost too bizarre to be true.

Recall the political wrangling after the 2000 election? Count, recount, re-recount. The difference there was a matter of several thousand votes. Here, one. One. And Jazowski’s reaction when he came into the teachers’ room that morning and was asked how things were? A shrug of the shoulders and one word: “przygrałem.” “I lost.”

If one who’d voted for Murzyniak had stayed home – perhaps an emergency of some sort, or sheer laziness – there would have been a tie. If two had stayed home…

Or perhaps there are two Jazowski supporters out there who didn’t go vote because they didn’t think their vote would make a difference…

One class that Monday were working on passive voice, so I introduced the lesson by talking about the election, then writing on the board, “It is said that the election was won by one vote.” Gotta see a teaching opportunity in everything . . .

Review: Christianity on Trial

Saturday 12 October 2002

I’m not sure whether the thesis of this book could best be summed up as, “Christianity isn’t all that bad” or “Christianity has made the world the wonderful place it is today.” That depends on whether you’re trying to summarize the intended or actual thesis.

This purports to be basically a book of Christian apology, in a sense: not defending the faith’s tenants, but defending the faith’s acts. It rightly points out that there is a lot of criticism directed toward Christianity that, were it directed toward any other religion, would be construed as bigotry. That’s true enough, and a fair criticism. On the other hand, the book seems to imply that the majority of contributions Christianity has made to civilization are positive – that the scales tip toward the good. That’s fine and good, but it doesn’t provide enough proof of that. We never get any idea if the people and groups in each chapter are exceptions to the rule, or the standard. I got the feeling that the authors didn’t know either, but were trying to pass them off as the latter.

This is particularly noticeable when we consider the two topics conspicuously missing from the book: Christian anti-Semitism and Christian misogyny. The environment, democracy, and science all rightly get chapters, but nary a word about misogyny, and only lip-service to anti-Semitism (“Okay, okay, Luther was anti-Semitic, but look at all the good things he did!”). The closest thing to mentioning misogyny, on the other hand, is perhaps a reference to the (to use their woefully inadequate understatement) “unfortunate” Salem witch trials.

On the whole, I remain unconvinced of Christianity’s virtues through the centuries. It’s a human institution, filled with the hatred, bigotry, and stupidity common to all people.

Still, it did make me realize that condemning the Apostle Paul for his views on slavery is to use an anachronistic morality to judge him. This is a common theme in the book, and somewhat rightly so. We can’t condemn society X for being cruel when it was no crueler than any other contemporary society, even if it is vastly more vicious than our own. We can comment on it, but it doesn’t make them immoral.