"I'm Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee"

From the Muskogee (Oklahoma) Daily Phoenix:

Cindy Sheehan's son, Casey, lost his life in Iraq. When the president visited her a few days after his death, the president changed the subject when she tried to talk about Casey and wouldn't look at pictures of her son.
...
Former President Nixon allowed antiwar protesters to gather and camp on the White House lawn and even went out and visited them with a very small Secret Service detail. I don't expect the same from Bush. Especially not after being at Camp Casey for a couple of days and seeing the police presence and tactics they used. But from the little I know of Cindy Sheehan after talking to her three or so times, I have no doubt that she will be camped somewhere in Washington D.C.
....
The president had to pass the crosses and protestors when he attended a GOP fundraiser Friday afternoon (Aug. 12) at a nearby ranch. We protestors were backed farther away from the road, roped off with police tape for about four hours with Secret Service, state and county law enforcement officers. A helicopter flew overhead lower than others that we were accustomed to. The helicopter had an agent riding outside with a weapon trained on us, but once the motorcade passed he moved on as well. The motorcade went by us twice very fast, and a few of the vehicles had rifles pointed out open windows. I was thankful no one made any sudden moves.

I can honestly say I never thought anyone would make Richard Nixon look like a decent human being. Or make Nixon look less paranoid than I remember him.

Never say "never".

George W. Bush is a small man in a big job. He is not fit to be President. I'm not sure he's fit to live among civilized people. And the columnist for the newspaper in Muskogee, Oklahoma, doesn't think we should be in Iraq:

We Americans have sat by while this administration and top Pentagon officials have gone against the Geneva Convention, which will put our troops in harm's way for years to come. This administration felt the need to have "torture" defined by the attorney general for the first time.

We Americans have sat by and allowed the low-level military personnel become scapegoats after the torture photographs came out. Everyone knows that in the military you follow orders without question. We haven't seen all the torture photos and videos. I'm sure we don't want the world to see our shame. Once we know about it and do nothing to stop it, then aren't we just as guilty as those who carry it out?

I am antiwar in Iraq because we were lied to about why we are in Iraq, our troops still don't have enough protective equipment, there were no weapons of mass destruction and Iraq wasn't responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center. The first report I saw on CNN was that Marines had successfully secured 20 oil sites. It hasn't been about taking democracy to the Iraqi people. The Downing Street memos, the massive number of soldiers returning wounded and with missing limbs and more than 1,841 American soldiers' deaths, those are some of the reason's I am against the war in Iraq.
...
We Americans should make sure we elect officials who will send our boys to war only when absolutely necessary. I do not intend to be partisan as I am very disappointed in the leadership in both parties. I am disappointed in "we Americans," too, as many of us have sat quietly by and let this happen and that includes me. I pray that our troops will be home by Thanksgiving. I don't care which side of the aisle in Congress can get it done. But I don't think it will happen unless we Americans start letting our voices be heard. Peace.

If Cindy Sheehan simply makes us all take a little more responsibility for our lives, and our country, she will have done this country a greater service than any politician ever could.

Turn out the lights, Mr. Bush. The party's over. By your unwillingness, or inability, to take responsibility for what you did, you are shaming this country.

Words Worth Keeping In Mind

"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy."

Wendell Berry

Shooting an Elephant

"I and the schoolchildren know,
What everyone must learn.
Those to whom violence is done
do violence in return."--W.H. Auden

Perhaps we can blame it on the Holocaust. Perhaps on Christian anti-semitism. Maybe we should take it all the way back to Cain and Abel.

But listening to reports of Israeli settlers being forcibly evicted from their homes on the Gaza Strip, I keep remembering the man I heard speak a few years ago, at my church. He was a Palestinian, a few years older than me. He was Palestinian, but he had spent his professional career in Dallas, as a Medical Examiner, and had recently retired from that position.

He told us how his family was evicted from their home, when the State of Israel was created. How his father, a jeweler, a man of means settled in the community, was given a few hours to gather what belongings he could carry and leave his house, forever. The men who told him this carried machine guns. They were not going to wait patiently for days, nor give months of notice, or come in force and gently carry people out who refused to leave. Refusal was clearly not an option. They were to leave, and there was no government to relocate them, to re-orient them, no neighborhood to receive them nearby. They were to leave, and where they went was of no concern to the men with the guns.

I know little, shamefully, of the history of modern Israel. I know little about the Balfour Declaration, and hadn't heard of the "Palestinians" until Munich, in '68. I'm afraid I'm like most Americans in that regard. It took me decades to understand the anger of the PLO that erupted in Germany that year, and I still don't condone it, or excuse it.

But violence has deep roots. Whenever we excuse it as being in our name, the name of our group, for the sake of our idea of "right," we simply condone violence: nothing more, nothing less. Might does not make right, we say; and then we employ it to do just that. We ask the Palestinians to reject violence, condemn Hezbollah for claiming their violence drove Israel to abandon Gaza, and then look on passively, even approvingly, as Israel uses violence to achieve its ends, as we use violence in Afghanistan and Iraq to pursue our "good."

Violence has deep roots, and it is always personal. I don't know the history of the formation of modern Israel, and I don't intend to take sides with this posting. Every Sunday, I join in the community's prayer for "the Church in Israel, and the church in Palestine." And I remember the story of that man; and I remember, as ministry has taught me, as one of my seminary professors taught me, that "life is messy." It is messy, because it is made up of the stories of individuals. Not of great events, or the zeitgeist, or historical currents upon which we are borne as chips on a stream. It is made up of the lives of individuals. And their stories are the hardest things of all for us to deal with, because they are concrete. They are personal.

We prefer the abstract, because it is impersonal. We prefer the "big picture," because it leaves us out. One of George Orwell's best works was his essay, "Shooting an Elephant." It reminds us that, not only is the individual implicated in the "sweep of history." The individual is responsible for it. History is not made of impersonal forces. It is made of human actions, individual stories. History is messy.

Support our Troops!

Well, here's a shorter and simpler one. Call it: Bob Herbert in support of Cindy Sheehan:

For all the talk of supporting the troops, they are a low priority for most Americans. If the nation really cared, the president would not be frolicking at his ranch for the entire month of August. He'd be back in Washington burning the midnight oil, trying to figure out how to get the troops out of the terrible fix he put them in.

Instead, Mr. Bush is bicycling as soldiers and marines are dying. Dozens have been killed since he went off on his vacation.

As for the rest of the nation, it's not doing much for the troops, either. There was a time, long ago, when war required sacrifices that were shared by most of the population. That's over.

I was in Jacksonville, Fla., a few days ago and watched in amusement as a young woman emerged from a restaurant into 95-degree heat and gleefully exclaimed, "All right, let's go shopping!" The war was the furthest thing from her mind.

For the most part, the only people sacrificing for this war are the troops and their families, and very few of them are coming from the privileged economic classes. That's why it's so easy to keep the troops out of sight and out of mind. And it's why, in the third year of a war started by the richest nation on earth, we still get stories like the one in Sunday's Times that began:

"For the second time since the Iraq war began, the Pentagon is struggling to replace body armor that is failing to protect American troops from the most lethal attacks by insurgents."

Scandalous incompetence? Appalling indifference? Try both. Who cares? This is a war fought mostly by other people's children. The loudest of the hawks are the least likely to send their sons or daughters off to Iraq.

Herbert raises the question: what does support for the troops mean? No public protest? Kind thoughts, when you think of them at all? Voting straight party GOP every two years?

When we support our country in war, what do we do? And if we aren't moved to actively support our troops, is that our failing (as Henry Kissinger seems to think)? Or is that the failure of the leadership who sold us on this war?

Which is precisely Cindy Sheehan's question: Mr. President, why are our children dying on your orders? What is your explanation?

"What Would Jesus Do?

Eventually, I will resist the temptation to recycle myself, and post pithier (or at least shorter) posts. In the meantime, however.... Lots of ideas here, I realize: hospitality; ecclesiology; soteriology (salvation by faith? by works? both and a little bit of neither?); inclusion/exclusion. In the end, still a sermon; which means it had its own purposes, once upon a time.

TEXT: ISAIAH 35:4-7A; JAMES 1:1-17; MARK 7:24-37

The question that James puts before us is this one: Do you belong to this church? Or does this church belong to you? It's a question of ministry. Do you belong to your ministry, or does your ministry belong to you? That's what the Syrophoenician woman is asking. Who do you serve? And why? What do you think? What would Jesus do?

"My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Have a seat here, please/, while to the one who is poor you say, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet," have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?" We don't do this, of course. We don't dishonor the poor here. We don't treat the stranger differently because of the way they are dressed. We know that lesson. We know how we should behave. But the assembly James is talking about is the "synagogue." It's the meeting of the believers, the gathering of Christians in the name of Christ. So there's more to it than just being civil; there's more to it than just not being a snob. Because the question really is: how should we act in church? And why?

The second question answers the first; and it isn't an easy answer to get to. It isn't easy in part because we don't like to think that little slights, that personal opinions, are the same as evil thoughts. But James says that, as soon as we distinguish among ourselves, that's what we become: "judges with evil thoughts." But over so slight a thing as how someone is dressed! Surely that isn't what he means! Surely it isn't that simple, that easy, to do evil! But if it is, what do we do about it?

Well, what kind of evil are we describing? The evil of adultery, or the evil of murder? One is surely worse than the other, and both are surely worse than showing favoritism to one person over another. But all of them violate the law. It's inevitable we would violate the law; is one violation better than another? The frightening truth is, that evil is that close at hand. It is as close as the way you treat the next stranger who comes through that door. So I repeat: do you belong to the church, or does the church belong to you?

Because if the church belongs to you, it is yours: it is your possession, your property, you own it. If you own it, then you have a vested interest in maintaining it in the way that suits you best. And that includes who you invite here; who you welcome here; young or old, rich or poor.

Because every time someone new comes to church, that means your church changes. Your idea about church has to change; it has to expand to include someone new. And what if that person doesn't look like you, or doesn't speak your language, or, hardest of all, brings new ideas about the church, ideas you don't like? What does that do to your church? And what right have they, these strangers, to change it, to mess with your church?

Isn't that what James means? If someone comes to your church with poor rags, but wants to worship here; if someone comes who is young, or brings children, and they want to eat here, and study the Bible here, aren't they also bringing new ideas here? Aren't they changing your idea of what this church is? Is it even easier, in fact, to accommodate new people, than to accommodate new ideas? After all, if it's only one person, you can adjust to that. But what if it's 100 people, and they all have new ideas about how to do things, how to use the kitchen or what hymns to sing or what missions we should pursue? What if it is so many people you can't adjust, your idea of church can't expand enough, and pretty soon it's not "your church" anymore? What then?

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." Faith without works is refusing to get your hands dirty, refusing to get involved with all the other people who make up this church. Faith without works is trying to keep the church "your church," because to do otherwise would mean getting involved, and expanding your world, and doing things for other people you might never have done before. It's easier to say "Go in peace" than to offer your hand; to say "keep warm" than to open your door or give a blanket; to say "eat your fill" than to add "and do it here, at my table, right now."

Faith without works is saying "This is my church." But what if you were to say "I am the church's. I belong to this church." What then? Would you see the church as whoever is here, and you here equally as they are, young or old, rich or poor? Would you see the church as belonging to God, and you as having a ministry, a service, a role here in Christ's name? And then, instead of looking at the poor and saying ''There but for the grace of God...," you would say "We are both here because of the grace of God, and because of God's grace, I will help you." What then? Then you don't care what the person looks like who walks in the door; you just thank God who has called them.

Then, every time someone new came with a new way of doing things, a new song to sing, you could bless God for the new things that are being done. Then, the church would be God's, and you a part of it, each of us a servant, and all of us praising God together. Then, if you asked yourself, what would Jesus do, you would know the answer; you would know he had been there before you, he had shown you what to do. Because when the woman comes to him, a Gentile woman, and asks for help, he tells her his ministry is not to her. He reacts as we might to a poor person, or a newcomer: "Let us be served first," we might say. Your turn to be served will come. Or, as Jesus puts it: "Let the children be fed first," he says, "for it is not fair to take the
children's food and throw it to the dogs." But she reminds him that his ministry is God's, not his; that his role is servant, not judge. "Sir," she says, "even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Now this is a new thing; Jews didn't have anything to do with Gentiles. Gentiles were not the children, the children of Abraham. But this Gentile woman opens Jesus' eyes, and his heart. "For saying that," he says, "you may go-the demon has left your daughter." In other words, he blesses her for teaching him, for allowing him to see that his ministry is God's work, not his; that his ministry is a blessing from God, for him to share.

What would Jesus do? Listen, and learn. In fact, the next thing he does is heal another Gentile, this time without hesitation. He has learned that his ministry is God's work, that his ministry is not his possession to protect, but a blessing to share. He learned that God is indeed doing new things, and Jesus opens the ears of the deaf-mute, just as he opens our ears, so we can hear, and learn, and do God's will, and not ourselves be judges with evil thoughts.

When your idea of church is too small to contain all the people who want to be part of it, when your idea of church has been forced to expand so many times you can no longer hold onto it, that's when you should let it go. Let it go, because what you will have is better than what you held on to. Let it go, because that's what Jesus would do.

Let it go, so your ears can be opened, and your tongue can speak. Our ministry is not our possession, anymore than this church is our possession. We, and this church, and this ministry, all belong to God. And in God's name and in God's love we welcome children, and strangers, the rich and the poor, those with new ideas, and those with old. We welcome them all, because God welcomes them just as God welcomes us. This is Christ's place, and we are Christ's ministers. There is great joy, great freedom, great strength in that! What would Jesus do? Jesus would free us from our fears, from our need to be in possession. Jesus would open our ears so we can let go of being judges in favor of being ministers. Jesus would have us simply listen, and believe:

"Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
He will come and save you."
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy

For God is about to do a new thing, and we are going to be a part of it.

Amen.

"What Goes Around"

I know when I do this kind of thing, it tends to drive traffic right into the ground (not that I pay attention to how many visitors I get, you know; that would be vainglorious; not to mention futile). But this seemed to catch some themes we've been discussing, or raising in the comments, so I figured: "Well, it'll fill a page."

From the 7th Sunday of Epiphany, 2001.

TEXT: GENESIS 5:3-11, 15; PSALM 37:1-11, 39-40; 1 CORINTHIANS 15:35-38,42-50; LUKE 6:27-38

Charity must have its limits. That's what the man told me. We'd only just met, but he was quite sure of his opinion. We were talking about someone who had been with him in downtown Houston. This third person had tried to give a dollar to a homeless man on the street. My new acquaintance thought it quite absurd, to be handing out perfectly good money to someone who obviously was not a perfectly good person. Charity, he told me, must have its limits. Because, after all, if we gave away everything, we'd soon have nothing left. Yes, charity must have its limits.

But Jesus says: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you."

Now: which one makes more sense?

"Love your enemies" is hard, because it throws the whole idea of enemies into question. Do you have enemies, or do you make them? I know people who virulently hate politicians, people they've never met and never will meet. Did the politician make them an enemy, or is it just part of being a public figure to have some people who just hate you, simply because you're there? Either way, can you really love an enemy? Don't you have to have some reason to love someone? Don't you have to have some reason to even like them?

And what's this business about giving away your cloak and your shirt? Do you realize what that would mean? The cloak was just an outer garment, kind of a robe. It was worn over an undergarment, kind of like a nightshirt. Those were your clothes, in Jesus' day: a shirt, and over that a cloak. If you gave those away, all you'd be left with would be your sandals. Giving away your cloak and your shirt would leave you, well, naked.

It's no better if you give to everyone who begs from you. Go out here on [the road ] and give some money to the first person you see. Better yet, come live near the church, come live in the parsonage with me for a week. See how many people come to the door, or to the church office, once they find out they might get some money here. See how many come back, again and again. Charity must have its limits, certainly. But Jesus says "Give to everyone who begs from you." How long could we keep that up, and still pay the electric bill? Before long, we'd be naked. Which is what Jesus tells us to be.

"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. " When you give a gift, do you expect something in return? A thank you, an acknowledgement, at least some recognition that you were the giver and the gift was received? But if you expect that, is it really a gift?

I know it's hard to think about, but look at it this way a moment. When you work for somebody, they give you money in exchange: your time for their money. When you buy something, you give the store your money, the store gives you its goods. Their toaster, for your money. Or you give the bank your money to lend, they pay you for the use of your money. There's always an exchange, something for something. Even in our charity, we want to think we helped someone, that we gave money for a good reason, that it was appreciated, or used well, or not misspent or just given to somebody who was hustling us, scamming for a dollar. When you think about it that way, there really isn't such a thing as a gift, is there? Not a gift you give, expecting nothing in return. Even a birthday gift, or a simple card, you expect someone to say something, don't you? You expect something back for what you gave. So it's always an exchange, even if the exchange is not for money.

So if I love you because you love me, love isn't a gift, it's simply an exchange. I give back to you as you gave me. If I do good to you because you did good to me, my good deed isn't a gift, I'm keeping up the system of exchange. If I lend to you, I expect you to return the money to me. That's the system of exchange. I don't love my enemies, because they are outside the system of exchange: they won't love me back. I don't lend, expecting nothing in return, because then I lose in the system of exchange. If I keep that up, I wind up naked, or begging on the streets of downtown Houston.

Charity has to have its limits.

But what credit is that to me? It's a credit among people, among sinners, as Jesus says, but what credit is that with God? After all, God gives, expecting nothing in return. God gave you life, and you don't have to return anything to God for it. You may; indeed, you should. But God does not require it. God gives us the church, and we don't even have to return anything to that; no one charged you admission this morning, no one's going to check on how much you paid before you get out of here. "Pretty good show for a buck" is the standard joke. But you don't have to do anything for it. But of course, if you don't do anything for it, you don't get anything from it.

But what do you get from charity, besides a nice feeling of doing something for somebody? Well, at least, as long as you are sure you've done something for someone. Maybe you've given a buck to a wino, and now he's off to the liquor store. Maybe you've given a bag of groceries to someone who doesn't seem grateful at all, who won't even get out of the car when you carry them out for his wife. Maybe you've given a dollar to someone who simply doesn't deserve it, but how do you know? Charity has to have its limits, doesn't it?

Well, it does; but those limits are beyond our understanding. Those limits are better than we could ever imagine. Because the problem of the ideal gift that I outlined, the problem of the gift that is given with no idea of getting back, is that it's impossible. You always get back for what you give. It's the idea of getting back, the expectation, that matters. "Lend, expecting nothing in return," Jesus says. But you will get something in return. What goes around comes around. "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back."

And if you are fortunate, this won't always be true. Consider the story of Joseph. His brothers beat him, stripped him, threw him in a pit, tried to decide if they should kill him, and then sold as a slave to a passing caravan on its way to Egypt. That's how he got there and then, through the grace of God, he saved Egypt from the famine. That's what brings his brothers there, years later; the famine. And when they come to Egypt begging for food, begging for relief, Joseph could have killed all of them. Charity, after all, has to have its limits. The measure you give will be the measure you give back, so who could blame him if he'd said to them: what you did to me, I now do to you. But he didn't. Instead, he has an epiphany.

"And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here," he tells his brothers, "for God sent me before you to preserve life. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. So it was not you who sent me here, but God; [and] You shall settle in the land of Goshen, and. . . I will provide for you there." Joseph does not give back the measure he gave. His brothers meant for him to have death; but he gives them life. "Love your enemies," Jesus says, "do good to those who hate you. . . . and you will be children of the Most High; for [God] is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." God is kind even to the brothers of Joseph; because if God hadn't been kind, there would have been no nation of Israel, no Jesus of Nazareth, no [ ] church, today.

What goes around, comes around. If there are limits to charity, they are not yours to define. If you charity leaves you naked, that's as it should be. Love is naked. Love is exposed. That's why love, love as Jesus talks about it, love for your enemies, for those who curse you and abuse you, for those who hurt you so deeply you'll never fully recover, that's why love for those people is so hard, so dangerous, so scary. Because it leaves you without cloak or shirt, without even sandals. It leaves you naked. But it makes you children of the Most High. Love like that clothes you in God. Love like that, covers you in prayer. Love like that, is why this church is here; it's why God's church is here, on earth; the church of which we are just a part, a small portion. Clothed in love, naked to the world. Exposed, but not vulnerable. Living without limits to our charity, because there are no limits to our God. Because God is kind even to the wicked and the unjust. It is God's way in the world, and we see all around us the benefit of it. May this be an epiphany to you.

Amen.

From the Lectionary for this Morning

Isaiah 56:1-7

Thus says the Lord: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed. Happy is the mortal who does this, the one who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath, not profaning it, and refrains from doing any evil. Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, "The Lord will surely separate me from his people"; and do not let the eunuch say, "I am just a dry tree." For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant; I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the Sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant-these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.

Nothing was said about the controversy over ordaining homosexuals in the Episcopal church from this passage, but it might have been. Had I been preaching this morning, I probably would have said it. I have no expertise in the social order of Israel in the time of Deutero-Isaiah, but I assume from context that eunuchs were almost abominations, because they were unable to engender children. They were certainly not whole, certainly could not be "holy," and therefore could never come into the house of God.

Most of the restrictions on people in what we now call the "Middle East" arose around notions of cleanliness, which became entangled with righteousness. Unclean and impure persons could not be holy persons; and only those persons who could purge their unclean state, were considered acceptable to God, as God was holy, and could not allow anything unholy to be in God's presence. There was a practical side to this: God's holiness made it impossible for any mortal to be in God's presence. As Isaiah says early in his ministry: "Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, but my eyes have seen the Lord God of Hosts!" If Isaiah was unclean, imagine how much more unclean a eunuch must be, a man who cannot function as a man, who has been cut off (literally and figuratively) from that which men alone (in the old understanding of reproductive biology) can do: plant seed for the next generation.

So, from eunuchs, unholy because they are not "wholly" men, to homosexuals...is it such a far leap? And yet God tells the eunuch not to say "I am just a dry tree." (The power of the metaphor alone speaks volumes here.) God accepts, and redeems, the eunuch. Yes, by proper observance of the rituals, and also by how the eunuch keeps the covenant. But the foreigners, and even the eunuch, are acceptable in the house of God. Not only are they acceptable, but their sacrifices are acceptable at God's altar. At God's altar, in God's house; making it truly a house of prayer for all peoples.

So at what point are they excluded from the prayers of the house? At the point they are mentioned aloud? At the point they stand up to lead? And why?

My tradition has a phrase, one I think that goes back to the origins of the Evangelical Church in Prussia in the 19th century; but I am not sure about that. It doesn't matter; the phrase is what's important. "In essentials, unity," it goes; "in non-essentials, diversity; in all things, charity." It's a nice sentiment, but the sharp-eyed will notice immediately, it doesn't offer any definitions of "essentials" or "non-essentials." But then, it doesn't have to. It is what it seeks, what it directs us toward, that is important. In essentials, we not only should find unity but, turn it around, we will find unity. In non-essentials, we will accept diversity. And how are we to do this? By practicing, in all things, charity. Charity enough to let even the sacrifices of the eunuch, of the gay man, the lesbian woman, be acceptable at the altar of our God.

"Some of us have a little bit, and some of us are soaked in it."

You may have seen this post by Cindy Sheehan. I just happened to stumble across it, and it is worthy of wider dissemination.

Jacques Derrida wrote: "Religion is responsibility, or it is nothing at all." Ms. Sheehan understands what our leaders don't: in a democracy, we are all responsible:

There is too much at stake to worry about our own egos. When my son was killed, I had to face the fact that I was somehow also responsible for what happened. Every American that allows this to continue has, to some extent, blood on their hands. Some of us have a little bit, and some of us are soaked in it.

When I think of the moral courage it took to write those words, it erases all of the slander and libel being directed toward Ms. Sheehan from so many "supporters" of the President.

It is a matter of responsibility. It is, also, a religious matter. "Whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me."

Final Words on McKibbens' Essay

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is
striking at the root." - Henry David Thoreau

McKibben's closing description of 'mainstream' churches made me think that, to the extent the churches focus their public messages on "gay marriage" or other divisive and controversial issues (with the clear aim of gaining attention; the UCC brags about how its ad for an "inclusive" church, i.e. "we accept gay people", has increased its membership; a very secular standard of measure, one must say), they are playing their opponents' game.

I got this from my father the other day in an e-mail. It supposedly comes from Andy Rooney:

DID YOU KNOW? As you walk up the steps to the building which houses the U.S. Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view ... it is Moses and he is holding the Ten Commandments!

DID YOU KNOW?

As you enter the Supreme Court courtroom, the two huge oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion of each door

DID YOU KNOW?

As you sit inside the courtroom, you can see the wall, right above where the Supreme Court judges sit, a display of the Ten Commandments!

DID YOU KNOW?

There are Bible verses etched in stone all over the Federal Buildings and Monuments in Washington, D.C.

DID YOU KNOW?

James Madison, the fourth president, known as "The Father of Our Constitution" made the following statement:

"We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

DID YOU KNOW?

Patrick Henry, that patriot and Founding Father of our country said:

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians, not on religions but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ".

DID YOU KNOW?

Every session of Congress begins with a prayer by a paid preacher, whose salary has been paid by the taxpayer since 1777.

DID YOU KNOW?

Fifty-two of the 55 founders of the Constitution were members of the established orthodox churches in the colonies.

DID YOU KNOW?

Thomas Jefferson worried that the Courts would overstep their authority and instead of interpreting the law would begin making law an oligarchy, the rule of few over many.

DID YOU KNOW?

The very first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, said: "Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rulers."

How, then, have we gotten to the point that everything we have done for 220 years in this country is now suddenly wrong and unconstitutional?

Lets put it around the world and let the world see and remember what this great country was built on.

I was asked to send this on if I agreed or delete if I didn't. Now it is your turn...It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore, it is very hard to understand why there is such a mess about having the Ten Commandments on display or "In God We Trust" on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the other 14% to Sit Down and SHUT UP!!!

My brother immediately fired off a response:

Claim: Religious symbols and references abound in U.S. capital buildings and the words of America's founders.

Status: Multiple — see below:

* Buildings in the U.S. capital and statements by America's founding fathers includes references to Judeo-Christian tradition: True.

* The items included in the piece quoted below demonstrate a government endorsement of Judeo-Christian tradition: False.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2003]

[I'll leave out the repetition of the claims above, and go straight to the responses.]

Origins: Although the intent of this piece is presumably to demonstrate a government endorsement of Judeo-Christian tradition through the symbols and words used in U.S. federal buildings and the writings of America's founding fathers, nearly all of the information it presents is inaccurate or — when taken in its proper context — misleading.

As you walk up the steps to the Capitol Building which houses the Supreme Court you can see near the top of the building a row of the world's law givers and each one is facing one in the middle who is facing forward with a full frontal view — it is Moses and the Ten Commandments!

* The United States Capitol does not house the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court has met in its own building since 1935.

* The two representations of Moses which adorn the Supreme Court building both present him in a context in which he is depicted as merely one of several historical exemplars of lawgivers, not as a religious figure. (This is why, for example, the Supreme Court of the United States rejected appeals to overturn a decision ordering the removal of a monument to the Ten Commandments from an Alabama courthouse — the monument did not present the Ten Commandments in a context other than as quotations of Biblical verse and was therefore deemed an unconstitutional state endorsement of religion.)

The depiction referred to here is a sculpture entitled "Justice the Guardian of Liberty" by Hermon A. McNeil, which appears on the eastern pediment of the Supreme Court building. (The eastern pediment is the back of the Supreme Court building, so this sculpture is not something one would see "walking up the steps to the building which houses the Supreme Court." The front entrance is on the western side.) The sculpture was intended to be a symbolic representation of three of the Eastern civilizations from which our laws were derived, personified by the figures of three great lawgivers: Moses, Confucius, and Solon (surrounded by several allegorical figures representing a variety of legal themes):

McNeil described the symbolism of his work thusly: Law as an element of civilization was normally and naturally derived or inherited in this country from former civilizations. The "Eastern Pediment" of the Supreme Court Building suggests therefore the treatment of such fundamental laws and precepts as are derived from the East. Moses, Confucius and Solon are chosen as representing three great civilizations and form the central group of this Pediment.

Note also that the two other lawgiver figures (Confucius and Solon) are not "facing [the] one in the middle" (i.e., Moses) as claimed here — all three of the lawgivers are depicted in full frontral views, facing forward. (The allegorical figures who flank the lawgivers are facing towards the middle, but they are looking in the direction of all three men, not just Moses.) And although many viewers might assume Moses is holding a copy of the Ten Commandments in this depiction, the two tablets in his arms are actually blank.
....

* The doors of the Supreme Court courtroom don't literally have the "Ten Commandments engraved on each lower portion" — the lower portions of the two doors are engraved with a symbolic depiction, two tablets bearing only the Roman numerals I through V and VI through X. As discussed in the next item, these symbols can represent something other than the Ten Commandments.
....

* The wall "right above where the Supreme Court judges sit" is the east wall, on which is displayed a frieze designed by sculptor Adolph A. Weinman. The frieze features two male figures who represent the Majesty of Law and the Power of Government, flanked on the left side by a group of figures representing Wisdom, and on the right side by a group of figures representing Justice:

According to Weinman, the designer of this frieze, the tablet visible between the two central male figures, engraved with the Roman numerals I through X, represents not the Ten Commandments but the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights.

* The friezes which adorn the north and south walls of the courtroom in the Supreme Court building (also designed by Adolph Weinman) depict a procession of 18 great lawgivers: Menes, Hammurabi, Moses, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius and Octavian (south wall); Justinian, Mohammed, Charlemagne, King John, Louis IX, Hugo Grotius, Sir William Blackstone, John Marshall and Napoleon (north wall):

According to the Office of the Curator of the Supreme Court of the United States, these figures were selected as a representation of secular law: Weinman's training emphasized a correlation between the sculptural subject and the function of the building and, because of this, [architect Cass] Gilbert relied on him to choose the subjects and figures that best reflected the function of the Supreme Court building. Faithful to classical sources, Weinman designed for the Courtroom friezes a procession of "great lawgivers of history," from many civilizations, to portray the development of secular law.

Note that Moses is not given any special emphasis in this depiction: his figure is not larger than the others, nor does it appear in a dominant position. Also, the writing on the tablet carried by Moses in this frieze includes portions of commandments 6 through 10 (in Hebrew), specifically chosen because they are not inherently religious. (Commandments 6 through 10 proscribe murder, adultery, theft, perjury, and covetousness.)

[Re: the statement attributed to James Madison] * Actually, this statement appears nowhere in the writings or recorded utterances of James Madison and is completely contradictory to his character as a strong proponent of the separation of church and state.

[Re: the statement attributed to Patrick Henry] * Another spurious quotation. These words appear nowhere in the writings or recorded utterances of Patrick Henry.

[Re: the chaplain] * Congress has indeed retained paid (Christian) chaplains since 1789 (not 1777) to open sessions with prayer and to provide spiritual guidance to members and their staffs upon request. This practice was strongly opposed by James Madison at its inception.

* The constitutional propriety of Congressional chaplains has been challenged in an August 2002 lawsuit filed in federal district court by Michael A. Newdow (the California man who won a federal appellate court decision against the use of the phrase "under God" in public school-led recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance). The case is still pending.

[Re: Jefferson]* Yes, Thomas Jefferson was concerned about courts overstepping their authority and making (rather than interpreting) law, as was James Madison, who said: "As the courts are generally the last in making the decision, it results to them, by refusing or not refusing to execute a law, to stamp it with its final character. This makes the Judiciary department paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended, and can never be proper."

However, this issue really has nothing to do with the subject at hand (the endorsement of Judeo-Christian tradition by the federal government), other than in the tangential sense that some people feel one of the areas in which U.S. courts have overstepped their bounds is the body of decisions prohibiting the use or display of religious symbols and references in state-operated institutions. (if you read much about Jefferson you'll see he was practically an agnostic and he's the man who wrote the amendment regarding the separation of church and state - DEJ).

Well, the tedium of that has a purpose. With all the problems facing the country, why does this one stir any interest? The simple answer: because it seems to be something we can "do something" about. Why we need to to anything about it is not critically examined (although it should be). But it seems like something we can "fix," although the truth is, it is not something that can be "corrected," anymore than the UCC General Synod can affect justice in society by affirming gay marriage (a controversial position within the church, to say the least) or advocating a boycott of Taco Bell (for the tomato supplier; an old controversy that also had at least some local churches wondering if General Synod even knew what it was talking about).

The issue comes around to "talking points," in the end. If I can describe a situation in inflammatory terms, I can stir your response. This is the favorite tool of demagogues, of course; although "demagogues" tend to be people we are opposed to, not our own "leaders." But what does any such abstract issue have to do with you, or you with it? Many churches call upon the examples of the Hebrew prophets for their justification, but Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel were personally involved in the issues of their day, were personally affected by them, and were personally challenged to tell the truth God revealed to them. They weren't dealing with the abstractions of legal arguments or corporate policy or social/legislative concerns.

Abstractions are very attractive. They are the bright, glittery things that draw our eye and make it easy for us to have a position. But when you are faced with the issue of your child being gay and wanting to have the legal securities of marriage that the law provides even common-law couples, or the complex realities of farming and food supply in America, or even the spouse who looks at you in the emergency room and asks: "What do I do?" when the doctor has just advised she authorize the removal of her husband's life support, abstract issues suddenly aren't attractive at all. Suddenly they are concrete, and the decision, and the responsibility, is yours.

We prefer decisions for which we will not be responsible. And even the mainstream churches have become guilty of that sin, largely in the name of increasing their membership, and thus assuring their continued institutional existence. It is frightfully easy, especially when you are not the pastor, the rector, the priest, to claim the church should take a stand on a very controversial issue, and damn the brickbats. But explain to the parents of a child who was gunned down in a robbery why the church is right to oppose capital punishment for people like the man convicted of murdering their son. Especially when you come into the scene after the event, and when they have been waiting years already for his execution.

All ministry, ultimately, is about individuals. And religion, as Derrida noted, is about responsibility; or it is about nothing at all. Ministry is religion enacted, enfleshed, made as incarnate as we creatures can make it. It is not about ideas alone; except without ideas, there is no ministry, and the individuals get nothing. But do the individuals also count for nothing? Athenae, at First Draft, linked to an essay where an adult recalls moving to a new city and attending the Catholic church there for the first time. The priest meets him, and pressures him at the age of 10 or so, to bring his parents to church, lest they burn in hell and he be responsible for their damnation. That, of course, is putting ideas above people.

Ministry is about balancing the two. Church is about balancing the two. It is, in fact, about balancing the bright and shiny generalities, and the individuals who cut themselves on the sharp edges of your pet passion; or belief; or theological position.

What are churches for? They are for people. Real people. Which is what makes them such tough places to be in, and put up with. And what makes them so very necessary. They are the place that, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

What they are not, is about games: games on the congregational level, or games against "enemies." That is not being "church." That is engaging in the game of power. And power exists for its own purposes. You only think you are wielding it. It is always wielding you. It always seeks its own good. Which is why it always urges you to say: "Why don't we just tell the other 14% to Sit Down and SHUT UP!!!"

It may look like fun, hacking at the branches. It's the hard, slow work of gardening, to go after the roots.

Testimonies or Tests?

"As I said: who's in, who's out."

This, to me, is much too dismissive. A creed is what the church believes.

And every church has a creed. It may not be written. The church may disclaim any reliance on creeds. But it will have traditions which set up acceptable parameters.

The Baptists help us out with the "Baptist Faith and Message." It's not a creed, but I suspect that any minister who departs seriously from it will soon get his pink slip from the board of deacons.

I hadn't expected to spark a discussion on creedalism, but it is an old one in church history, and extends well back into the origins of Protestantism. As the UCC says at its website:

The United Church of Christ embraces a theological heritage that affirms the Bible as the authoritative witness to the Word of God, the creeds of the ecumenical councils, and the confessions of the Reformation. The UCC has roots in the "covenantal" tradition—meaning there is no centralized authority or hierarchy that can impose any doctrine or form of worship on its members. Christ alone is Head of the church. We seek a balance between freedom of conscience and accountability to the apostolic faith. The UCC therefore receives the historic creeds and confessions of our ancestors as testimonies, but not tests of the faith.

"Testimony," in that tradition, is linked to confession. "Test" is the determination of who is allowed to be a member, a decision with very serious consequences when the church was aligned with the state, and so could block access both to salvation and to privileges controlled by government or society. Old resentments about such authority die hard (and recur, as people like Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson are attempting to do now). Certainly every institution has its litmus test, and eventually the distinctions do matter (unitarians v. trinitarians, Jewish or Christian?, etc.). But creeds have historically been used to determine who is allowed within the tent, and historically, some groups have rejected that emphasis. The question of "acceptable parameters" is, of course, always an issue. But that's not the issue with creedalism v. non-creedalism. The issue is: where are the parameters, and how are they decided? On corporate proclamation? Or individual conscience?

Creeds should be what the church believes. But too often, they have been (and are used) as what the individuals should believe. A test, not a testimony. (which, I understand, is a Protestant stance; but then, I'm still a Protestant).

A creed defines what a church believes. But the very nature of definition is that it draws a line, and so defines as well, what the church doesn't believe. Where those lines get drawn, or should be drawn, and why, is the very nature of the controversy of creedalism. Of such controversies are new denominations, and even new churches, created.

The Opposite of Sex

Bill McKibben:

In fact, there may be several competing creeds. For many Christians, deciphering a few passages of the Bible to figure out the schedule for the End Times has become a central task. You can log on to RaptureReady.com for a taste of how some of these believers view the world - at this writing the Rapture Index had declined three points to 152 because, despite an increase in the number of U.S. pagans, "Wal-Mart is falling behind in its plan to bar code all products with radio tags." Other End-Timers are more interested in forcing the issue - they're convinced that the way to coax the Lord back to earth is to "Christianize" our nation and then the world. Consider House Majority Leader Tom De-Lay. At church one day he listened as the pastor, urging his flock to support the administration, declared that "the war between America and Iraq is the gateway to the Apocalypse." DeLay rose to speak, not only to the congregation but to 225 Christian TV and radio stations. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "what has been spoken here tonight is the truth of God.

The question of what goes in a mission statement, of "how do we define ourselves," is ultimately a question of language. Creeds were the "mission statements" of the earlier church, and my complaint with "mission statements" is more the meaning behind them now, the shifting intent that means once again to include and exclude, simultaneously. I can say the Nicene Creed now without feeling I am excluding Unitarians, say; but the history of these things is always treacherous.

Three examples of conflict over language. The first from the "Left Behind" series:

Tens of thousands of foot soldiers dropped their weapons, grabbed their heads or their chests, fell to their knewws, and writhed as they were invisibly sliced asunder. Their innards and entrails gushed to the desert floor, and as those around them turned to run, they too were slain, their blood pooling and rising in the unforgivable brightness of the glory of Christ.

Now, I have to say, even though I've read descriptions like this before of the Christian eschaton, I still consider it a kind of violence porn, something meant to be titillating, to appeal to a baser nature or drive, and not a description merely, or an explanation of some truth of the human condition. This is purely violence as stimulant, an indication that Christianity has not moved much beyond the bread and circuses of the Roman Empire it started under.

Wittgenstein touches on the point I want to make here, though, albeit not from quite so drastic or dramatic a hypothetical. This is my second example.:

An Austrian general said to someone: "I shall think of you after my death, if that should be possible." We can imagine one group who would find this ludicrous, another who wouldn't.
....
Suppose that someone believed in the Last Judgment, and I don't, does this mean that I believe the opposite to him, just that there won't be such a thing? I would say: "not at all, or not always.
Suppose I say that the body will rot, and another says "No. Particles will rejoin in a thousand years, and there will be a Resurrection of you."
If someone said: "Wittgenstein, do you believe in this?" I'd say: No." "Do you contradict this man?" I'd say: "No."*

It is fairly clear, I think, that Mr LeHaye would say Mr. Wittgenstein does, indeed, contradict him.

The third example is from my own experience. I attended a weekend retreat many years ago now, where the topic was to be genetics and the response of the church. This was in response to the cloning of Dolly, the sheep, long before the current controversy over stem cells. The conference was called by influential lay leaders in the local church, scientitists who wanted the General Synod of the UCC to take a position on the issue (the resolution we produced at the end of the weekend went to General Synod, where it promptly disappeared; a matter of church politics). The attendees were divided between lay people and clergy, and throughout the weekend I kept urging, in small groups, the inclusion of language that referenced God as Creator; not an anti-science position, but a positive Christian position, or so I thought. However, on the last day, as we settled on the final wording of the resolution, I spoke up on the point for the final time, and urged again that we mention God more prominently, as this was a church document, not a scientific one, and as we spoke to add to the public conversation our particular ecclesiastical and Christian voice.

There was an embarassed silence from the clergy, and then a lay person spoke up and lambasted me for my suggestion. He was, he said, sick of the church beating up on science and scientists, and he would have no part of that. And that was the end of it.

What I took from that was the importance of language, the "several competing creeds" that McKibben talks about. Creeds are not only religious or doctrinal documents, they are the ideas we hold most dear, and what was said in that room was the God had a place in this conversation, but should be kept distinctly in it. Science rules the day, and theologians should recognize that God is merely an ancillary, an adjunct, to technology; an alternative explanation, perhaps, as to where electricity comes from or why water is wet, but not to be confused with the primacy and supremacy of empiricism and "rational thought." A lot of weight for one comment, eh? But it was a telling moment: even people in the pews imagine religion is nothing more than a series of myths, and myths are nothing more than a series of childish explanations for the functions of the material world which, after all, is the only "world" that "really" exists, so any non-empirical explanations for it, or even any metaphysical discussions about the universe, are simply nonsesne, and not finally to be tolerated. God is in a box now, thanks to human reason (no longer a gift of the Creator, but solely a consequence of evolution), and it is foolishness to pretend otherwise.

Which brings us back to the foolishness of Timothy LaHaye, and is pornographic violence. Just as I seemed to do violence to that man's world view at the retreat, Mr. LaHaye seems to desire violence against those whose world-view does not encompass even the God of his beliefs.

The curious thing about pornography (to wander further afield but come back to my point), the never-quite-mentioned thing, because we are, after all, a society, a culture, of rugged individualists (the kind who get left out of the family reunion, like John Wayne at the end of "The Searchers"), is that pornography is all about the "individual." This is what feminist critiques of pornography as "objectifying" and turning women into "sex objects" was rooted in, or at least trying to get at. Pornography is the ultimate selfishness: the "other" exists only to satisfy my needs, to give me a private stimulation I crave. You may watch it in a movie theater or at home with friends in the living room, but the message is the same: "This Porn's for You!" And it is all about your satisfaction, and nothing else.

And it provides the spiritual equivalent of a candy cane: intense pleasure for a moment, and absolutely no "nutritional" value. It leaves you, on other words, as empty as when you first arrived, and no better off. Porn is not limited to sex, either; as this example shows, this reveling in the bloody and horrific slaughter of the "unsaved" faced with the "unforgivable brightness of the glory of Christ."

This can be unpacked on so many levels. The Hebrew Scriptures make it clear that the revealing of the glory of God is deadly to mortals, but usually it's just frightening. When Moses comes down from Sinai, where he receives the law from God, his face glows with the reflected glory of God, and this scares the people. Moses has to wear a veil for a while, just to hide the glow, or "glory," his face reflects. This is not isolated. When the people hear the theophany of God on the mountain, the thunder and lightning of God's presence as God speaks to Moses, they hide in their tents, and later tell Moses to have God just speak to him, and he to them. God scares them, they say.

God still scares us, but now some of us want to ratchet up the fear level, and revel in the results as our "righteous" God slays the unbeliever. "See there," believers get to say: "We told you we were right!" It's not only a hideous sight, it's a hideous thought. It's a hideous theology.

But why would Mr. LeHaye say that Herr Wittgenstein was contradicting him? Because Mr. LeHaye doesn't believe in "language games"? Perhaps; but there is more to it than that. Mr. LaHaye, actually, and that layperson, and, I suspect, many a layperson (and indirectly, the clergy beholden to them for their continued employment, especially in a congregationally based polity), actually want their "God" in a box, one of their own devising, where "He" will not interfere with their lives or their fantasies. And if they cannot claim to contradict Wittgenstein, then how can they claim that their beliefs are real? How can God be God, if they are not in control of how "God" is understood, and if "God" is not in service to their desires?

Which gets us back to creeds; and mission statements.



*Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins Glorious Appearing (Wheaton, Ill., Tyndale House, 2004). p. 226, quoted in John Dicker, The United States of Wal-Mart (New York, Penguin 2005), p. 142.

* Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures & Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology & Religious Belief, ed. Cyril Barrett, (Berkeley, University of California Press), p. 53.

Sad, but true

It is possible, I think. Yes, the mainline Protestant churches that supported civil rights and opposed the war in Vietnam are mostly locked in a dreary decline as their congregations dwindle and their elders argue endlessly about gay clergy and same-sex unions. And the Catholic Church, for most of its American history a sturdy exponent of a "love your neighbor" theology, has been weakened, too, its hierarchy increasingly motivated by a single-issue focus on abortion. Plenty of vital congregations are doing great good works - they're the ones that have nurtured me - but they aren't where the challenge will arise; they've grown shy about talking about Jesus, more comfortable with the language of sociology and politics. More and more it's Bible-quoting Christians, like Wallis's Sojourners movement and that Baptist seminary graduate Bill Moyers, who are carrying the fight.

Bill McKibben

I have a friend from seminary who pastors a church which recently left its denomination after many years being a part of it. The congregation decided the denomination had left it, actually, and felt it was time to leave. I still receive her newsletter, and we remain friends, even as we go theologically in different directions and both, in our ways, leave the church that educated and ordained us. But it was the mission statement of the church, in its last newsletter, that struck me.

"Mission statements" are, as another pastor friend of mine pointed out, the detritus of management schools cast off by business that most Protestant churches pick up from the corporate ideas trash heap, and apply belatedly and pitifully to try to give our flagging enterprieses "purpose." They have long been abandoned by business, but churches continue to cycle through them, and they seem especially silly for congregations that are ove 100 years old. Still, everybody, sooner or later, has to have one, it seems.

This one struck me for the timeliness of its statements, statements made more in judgment than discernment, statements that reflect the pain of leaving the denomination, because so much of it defines the congregation in opposition to the larger church it left. But the one that really struck me, was the statement on "gay marriage."

It wasn't phrased that way; it was much more euphemistic. We have all learned euphemism in American culture, all become masters of the form. The euphemistic way around "gay marriage" in Protestant churches is to affirm that "marriage" means one man and one woman, and that chastity should be observed outside of marriage, monogamy within the marriage. It's not as blunt as "The first couple was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!," but the point is the same.

But still, I don't sit in judgment on this church and its decision on this issue: it's the issue that McKibben is getting at, and where I want to go, too. As a friend used to ask me: "Is this a hill you want to die on?" That's the question I hear McKibben asking. Is gay marriage (to pluck a divisive issue) the hill mainstream churches want to die on?

That this issue is intensely felt, and even being forced, on congregations, is clear from the "mission statement" of my friend's church. Gay marriage is a very narrow and very topical issue; it shouldn't be part of the definition of what a church is. There is no mention of homsexuality in the gospels, and only a few references to same-gender sex in Paul's letters (and most of those refer to the Greek practice of men using boys for sexual pleasure, what we sould today call "pederasty"). Why, then, does a Christian congregation feel the need to make that issue a part of the definition of who and what it is?

Battling Theologies

McKibben identifies a very real problem for churches, one apparent in the contrast between American and European societies. As McKibben notes, European societies have managed to take care of the poor, the "widow and the orphan," in Biblical terms, without Marx or Jesus. The American church, on the other hand, has managed little more than its own stock portfolio, at best. As a moral voice in this country, whether the issue is babies having babies or illegal and immoral wars, the church speaks with the voice of the turtle. But there is a reason for that, and it is at once the rose, and the worm in the heart of the rose, for Christianity.

The Church in Europe for centuries was the conscience of the king. (Although it didn't last long, in the English tradition the King, on Good Friday, would re-create the "last supper' of the Gospel of John by washing the feet of beggars in court, and giving them gifts; a reflection of the Biblical injunction to care for the poor as a matter of justice). But kings did not rule long who abused their people harshly (the lessons of the French Revolution were not lost on Europe). Kings always had a charge to take care of their subjects (the common law of England was based on the premise that even the peasant was the king's property, and to assault the peasant was to damage the king's property. Thus the state had an interest in keeping the peace and in punishing perpetrators of assault, or other crimes). It was an easy transition, then, from the monarchical state to the "socialist" state, and as the Church withered in the Enlightenment and afterwards (even Romanticism spurned the Church), the spiritual connection to care for others was easily replaced by the social obligation to "do the right thing." Or, at least, be civilized.

In America, self-reliance became the myth, and the church became the provider of charity (usually delivered with a strong dose of a gospel of "God helps those who help themselves!"). The American church, in other words, was always more concerned with personal salvation than with material security (after all, if you are "saved," then your material needs will be taken care of; if they are not, then perhaps you are not "saved").

But now, material comforts are the way to salvation. Now we even say that comfortable, middle-class people can't be Christians. Which would be a solution, except for the example of Central America, where more and more people are turning away from "liberation theology" and embracing the "gospel of wealth," the idea that Christianity is all about amassing your treasure here on earth, where God can protect it from moth and rust (apparently).

The flip side of this is something McKibben himself alludes to (albeit unintentionally), something I've come to call "vulture theology." It's a popular excuse among pastors and church judicatories: that the "people" will come back to "us" when they find out they really "need" us." When the "kids" grow up and have "kids," and want their kids to have a moral framework to learn in (Sunday school, at least). Or when they get divorced, lose a parent, a spouse, even (sadly) a child. "Vulture" theology, in other words: if we just wait until something in them dies, they will have to come back to us.

We never put it that way, of course, because it would appall even jaded pastors. But it is what we mean. Which is part of the tension between the individual and the institution. In a nutshell, I agree with what Diogenes said about church in the comments below. And I'm Protestant enough in background to be wary of prebendaries and prelates and all the other pomp and circumstance of the RC and Anglican communion. But institutions are a necessary human evil; without the church as it historically developed (although that development was neither a necessity nor an inevitability), none of us would be, or know anything about, Christians, as there would be no Christianity to profess. But professing Christianity does not mean professing the tenets of any one church above another, or against another.

Still, we need the institution; and the institution needs us. But does society need Christianity? And if so, which version? The European model? The American? or a third way, such as, say, the Celtic?

"They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love"

McKibben writes about the "Christian Paradox," by which I take him to mean that we profess Christianity, and do little or nothing to act on our profession.

In modern American culture we tacitly agree on a division of our lives into three spheres: Private; Public; and National. Private is what you do behind closed doors. Public is what is socially acceptable. And National is the realm Reinhold Niebuhr was addressing in Moral Man and Immoral Society: the one where we have to be "selfish" because the concern is for the survival of the group (the "nation"). Public life, of course, is also concerned with the behavior of the group, so often, in these more or less ecumenical times, we try to relegate religion to the Private sphere, lest the Public become a forum for squabbling over competing visions of the proper role of the Public.

This is where McKibben's argument goes, however: if we are Privately Christian, what difference does that make? Is Christianity really all about you? If we are, indeed, privately Christian, here's the paradox: what really distinquishes us from non-Christians, except a confession of faith, a matter of where we spend an hour on Sunday, or just a general attituude that ours is a "Christian nation."

But if we are to be publicly Christian, how do we behave? What would the role of the church be then? Of worship? Is McKibben right when he says:

Plenty of vital congregations are doing great good works - they're the ones that have nurtured me - but they aren't where the challenge will arise; they've grown shy about talking about Jesus, more comfortable with the language of sociology and politics"

I can tell you that my first exposure to the language of politics was in seminary. And my church, the UCC, seems more comfortable talking about politics, than talking about God (ask me about it in comments, I'll give you my anecdote on that one).

Is this paradox a true paradox? Or one of our making? And how do we unmake it?

The "Bottom Line"

It is well known in ecclesial circles that mega-churches survive on advertising. The rule of thumb is that they lose almost as many members through the "back door" as they gain through the "front door," so, like the myth of the shark, they have to keep "moving forward," or they die.

Which is why Lakewood, according to the Houston Chronicle article, is in the "business" of "marketing salvation," although Joel Osteen prefers to say he's reaching out to the "unsaved and the unchurched." Advertising plays a big role in this effort, as it does for all "mega-churches." The last billboard campaign Lakewood ran had a simple motto: "We Believe in You!" A curious slogan for a "Christian" church.

Willow Creek Community Church is another "mega church that has been much studied by students of ecclesiology. G.A. Pritchard, a Ph.D. candidate sympathetic to the aims of Willow Creek's theology, studied it's "seeker services," which were designed to draw in the "unchurched" and convert them to Christians. The process was supposed to be a four-step model that drew the unchurched into a full communion among the community of believers. (An explanation of the process is available in Bill Hybel's book, Rediscovering Church.) The only problem with it was, it didn't work.*

Pritchard's study concluded that "unchurched" members of Willow Creek were certainly drawn to the "contemporary worship, which was an attractice TV variety show format, with up-tempo songs led by a "praise leader," backed by a rock band, and demanding little more than listening skills from the "congregation." The idea was this "seeker service" would be as familiar as possible (and so it was consciously modeled on a TV talk show, with the "preacher" as the "host"), and by constant exposure to a "moral" message embedded in an entertaining package, the unchurched would deepen their commitment to God by furthering their commitment to the church, and become active and engaged church members. Except few did; most, predictably, took the path of least resistance. They came for the cake and coffee, the candy, so to speak, and left. They never asked for more.

That "plan," by the way, is based more or less on older European models of church, where one becomes an active member of a community. The Baptist "revival" models I am familiar with from my childhood, provide the model for Lakewood: the same basic message repeated endlessly, a message which keeps the individual constantly returning for a renewal (or revival) of their "salvation." Just how tiresome that model can be for preachers became clear to me when I came across an article in one of those magazines for the "business of your ministry" in Seminary, which proclaimed a great new idea for putting zip and spark back into your December preaching, a time of year when you the pastor are just as hassled as anyone else, and running out of ways to sell salvation (non-denominational and congregational Protestant churches tend to live and die on the one message of "salvation." We'll have to talk about that seperately). The discovery? Advent.

Lakewood doesn't observe Advent, and my one experience with it's "mission outreach" was indicative of the mindset that Christianity is "all about salvation" and "all about membership." The UCC here in Houston owns a HUD apartment complex, maintained for low-income families. It is near the original Lakewood building, and for a few years Lakewood provided turkeys to the residents at Thanksgiving. The year that stopped, Lakewood refused to deliver the turkeys, and required the residents to pick them up personally. This, of course, was impossible: most of the residents worked, and few had cars. The intent was clear: you want 'em, you pay for 'em, and "pay" meant: listen to our "sales pitch" for "salvation."

What does a mega church want to do? In my experience, as the Houston Chronicle article says, they want to sell salvation. In a seminary class, we watched a video of a "seeker service" from Community Church of Joy in Glendale, Arizona. This time the sermon was preceded, not by scripture, but by a "sketch." A large, overweight woman in a very loose fitting dress (her appearance was intentionally clownish and boorish), with juice cans for rollers in her hair, and a broad Southern accent, came out and gave a monologue about herself and her children. It was clearly fiction, but she was clearly meant to represent "trailer trash," a "hillbilly." But what I saw, was my extended family; my lower-middle class relatives. What I saw, in a supposedly "church" setting, was a mockery of people I loved. But this was supposedly excused because the "purpose" of the "message" was "salvation." Salvation at the expense of others was apparently a price even my class-mates were willing to pay.

Oddly, when I expressed that in the class, only one person, the African American woman who had felt persecuted in an almost entirely-white, almost entirely Midwestern school, sympathized; and the woman from Kentucky. And the African American woman only understood me when I compared it to an actor appearing in blackface, and mimcking black Americans. Everyone else thought I was being overly-sensitive. But the idea of even a "seeker service" which portrayed the children of God as objects of ridicule and an object lesson in what not to do (the thrust of the "sermon" that followed, based on the monologue) was deeply offensive.

If salvation is to be marketed, and that is an acceptable way of doing it, I want nothing to do with salvation. But this leads us to the question McKibben is getting at: what, then, is church for?




*Willow Creek Seeker Services: Evaluating a New Way of Doing Church, by G.A. Pritchard. Funny, when you go to that page, you're likely to get a list of books that reads like this:
This Little Church Went to Market : The Church in the Age of Modern Entertainment by Gary Gilley
Dining With the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts With Modernity (Hourglass Books) by Os Guinness
Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church Becomes Like the World by John F. MacArthur
Deceived on Purpose : The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church by Warren Smith
Rediscovering Church by Bill Hybels
Who's Driving the Purpose Driven Church? by James Sundquist

Compare and Contrast

First: there is going to be a strong need in these posts to keep in mind that "judgment" involves two sometimes contrary positions: discernment, and privilege. I will try to err on the side of discernment, and avoid the position of privilege (i.e., standing apart and claiming no connection to the item held in judgment). The fundamental teaching of Christianity, to me, is that we are all servants, no one above the other, no one fit to sit in judgment on the other. Still, we have to be discerning, to distinguish good from bad, God-sent from deceptive. Examples from the stories of the Desert Fathers will fit into that theme, and I will come back with them later. But first, let me mention this link from the Houston Chronicle before it fades behind a "subscriber's only" firewall, a link courtesy of leah in the comments.

Ironically, I receive still an unsolicitied magazine directed at pastors, all about the "business of your ministry." The one think I never thought of my ministry as, of course, is a business. But Joel Osteen knows otherwise, and concludes that business=stewardship. Perhaps it does.

From the article, we learn this:

"We have to be good stewards of God's money, so we run it by sound, solid business principles," said Osteen, who this year stopped taking his $200,000 salary from the church and instead lives on profits from sales of his best-selling book, Your Best Life Now, which has sold 2.8 million copies.

The documents show revenue for the 2004 fiscal year of $54 million, including $3.4 million from the church bookstore, which sells religious videos, CDs and books.

Records also show:

•It owns and operates KTBU Channel 55, "The Tube," a local television station that features religious shows and retro programming like Gunsmoke and I Love Lucy.
•Employees have access to retirement plans.
•It has had a multimillion-dollar line of credit at Northern Trust Bank and has seven-figure investments in securities..
•Lakewood structured a sophisticated $60 million construction loan with Bank of America to revamp its new home at the former Compaq Center using collateral pledges from its members, a deed of trust on its northeast Houston campus and a life insurance policy for Joel Osteen.
•The church has successfully sued to protect Joel Osteen's name as a valuable trademark.
•Osteen, who lives in a home appraised at $2.3 million in the ritzy Tanglewood neighborhood, is listed as president of Lakewood Church, a nonprofit organization. (A spokesman for the church noted that Osteen paid $380,000 for the home when he bought it, though it has since been remodeled.)
If Lakewood is to be compared to a business, there is no doubt it is family-run:

Osteen's wife, Victoria, his mother, brother, sister and in-laws all play central roles.

Kevin Comes, who is married to Joel Osteen's sister, Lisa, who also is a pastor at the church, is the administrator who handles the day-to-day business. He attributes much of the success to penny-pinching.

"We have an incredible budgeting system," Comes said. "We budget all the way down to hot chocolate."

Comes said Lakewood has done "significant analysis" that shows the church will increase its revenue by 42 percent, from $54 million in fiscal year 2004 to $77 million in the current fiscal year, 2006. At the same time, annual operating expenses will rise from
$45 million to $75 million.

Comes said the increased revenue will come from a sharp increase in weekend attendance — already at 30,000 strong before the church moved into the former Compaq Center. Worshippers are encouraged to tithe 10 percent or more of their income annually.

Now, the compare and contrast, which, admittedly, is a bit unfair. But an example, then, of how it "doesn't have to be this way." Other choices are available. And since our culture honors bigger and richer as better, Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church here in Houston is a good example for this comparison. Here is their mission statement:

* First, our house shall be called a house of prayer. (Matthew 21:13) Prayer guides our major policy decisions as well as our everyday lives. Our Partners in Prayer commit to fulfilling our goal that every member be prayed for every day.
* Second, in obedience to Christ's teaching, we are committed to a Dollar-for-Dollar benevolence program. Since our beginning in 1954 and continuing to the present, we annually set a goal of matching the money spent in the operation of the church and its programs with giving to those in need in the community and the world.

You might want to browse their website. They have a large campus, which I have visited because my daughter's school is nearby, and she's had athletic practices on the church's grounds, and because it has hosted Boy Scout events I attended as a church pastor. It's a large, wealthy church in a very wealthy part of town. And, apparently, like many a large church, it is building a satellite campus. But focuse on that second part of the their mission statement. So far as I know, they are still doing that: matching every dollar spent on themselves, with a dollar spent on mission work.

Imagine if every church did that.

What does Lakewood do? The article doesn't say, but if it is the typical "mega church," most of the money it raises is spent on itself.

It's common for a megachurch to have annual revenue in the millions of dollars, and for most if not all of that money to be spent on construction, highly produced services, advertising, promotion and broadcasting, according to the Hartford Institute for Religion Research. The average annual income for a megachurch was $4.8 million, with expenditures of $4.4 million, according to a 2000 Hartford study.

I can tell you from my experience that a church with a full time pastor needs a minimum of $100,000 to operate, and half of that will go to pay the pastor (taxes, housing, salary, books, etc.). Usually a tiny percentage of what is left over is dedicated to mission, and when most churches get in financial trouble, mission is the first item reduced, because it is considered most expendable. Now, this isn't a question of judgment, or critique, but of discernment. We all tend to start from "home." Indeed, it is a recognized sociological principle that groups form around a central idea, and the protection of that idea is paramount to the group. Only when the central idea, the formative notion, is secure, does the group feel secure in reaching out to others. Threaten that core, and the group contracts, "circles the wagons," and fears for its continued existence. Non-denominational churches and churches with weak denominational polities tend to be most vulnerable to this kind of terror, what I have called elsewhere this mysterium tremndums. A mysterium tremendums because the core of any Christian church is God, the ultimate unknown, whose very call to us is to love our neighbor and care for them as if they were God. But does that care start at home? Or does care for home, start with care for neighbor?

Memorial Drive Presbyterian is not a monastery, of course, where the members voluntarily give up almost everything in order to serve others as fully as possible. But it is much further down the road twoard that goal than a ministry that sees itself first as a business, and only latterly, if at all, as a mission; or that sees it mission, as a business.

Or so it seems to me.

Invitation to "The Christian Paradox"

This is the kind of thing that could be taken care of in one post. But that post would focus on only one aspect of the issue, invite minimal dialogue, and leave us all moving on down the buffet line looking for the next snack or entree.

Not this time. Or at least, I hope: not this time.

I want left rev. to chime in with posts on this as she sees fit: agree, disagree, add, subtract, challenge, support; I don't care, and in fact, I'll take them all, in equal or unequal measure.

"This" is an essay by Bill McKibben, published in Harpers, but available online through Sojourners. I've only just started reading it myself, so this is an invitation to you to read it, and then come back here ready to answer, ask, discuss, disorurse, disagree, and bloviate, on pointed and un-pointed questions.

I have experiences with Joel Osteen's church (from afar) that I want to share. I have my own opinions about "suburban churches" and the creed of "what's in it for me?" But I have questions about "cultural Christianity," as I've come to call it; the Christianity McKibben identifies in his essay, although my take on it may differ from his. And McKibben is right: "Who am I to criticize someone else' religion?" But before we are done, I want to come back to a pointed, important, and very thorny question: How do we define Christianity? Is it culturally specific? A matter of confession or profession? Or a matter of deeds, of actions?

And which ones?

That's an unpleasant place to go, but McKibben invites us to go there. We can't avoid it, simply because it is unpleasant. It occurs to me that the Desert Fathers offer some guidance there, that there are ways to establish standards without judgment. We'll need to talk about that, too.

Soon enough, we can let the conversations begin.

"Only the destitute are innocent"--Jesus of Nazareth, per Dom Crossan

If it weren't for memories of things like, oh, My Lai, I might not believe this story.

As it is, I have to consider the possibility that it is true.

This is the problem in war: no one is innocent. (link via Holden, at First Draft)

They were in Ramadi for three weeks before it got violent. Key’s job was to patrol streets and raid homes. “We’d use explosives to blow up the front door, then six of us would run in, grab the males and send them off for interrogation and hold the women and children at gunpoint while we completely destroyed their home. Soldiers could steal whatever they wanted.”

It was an adrenaline rush at first, but after a while Key couldn’t figure out why they were raiding homes. “I started seeing the mothers faces screaming and hollering; they don’t look at it as though it’s your government who is doing this to them, they see you as being the enemy. They look at you as though they would slit your throat at any minute if they could,” he explains.

When Key’s unit moved to Fallujah, he saw the enemy fighting back for the first time. “We went from not knowing what a mortar attack was to being under attack every single night.” Even though he was being shot at, Key felt that the Iraqis were just fighting for their country.

According to Key, sympathy for the Iraqi people was one of his downfalls. “You’re told to treat the enemy as though they’re guilty until proven innocent, and to have no remorse and no regret.” During a traffic control point that Key was part of, an American tank blew up a car that passed through without permission. There was a father and his child inside. The father was dead and the boy was badly injured. Key bandaged him up and took him to the closest hospital.

“I wasn’t supposed to do this as it showed sympathy to the enemy.” Key and other U.S soldiers searched the car afterwards and there were no signs of contraband anywhere. “They just didn’t understand what stop meant,” he says sadly. There were signs everywhere that showed the military’s lack of control. At a scene in Ramadi, Key realized that no soldier was going to be held accountable for their actions. “We turned a corner and all I saw were heads and bodies. It shocked us all. There were American troops in the middle saying they had lost it. My squad leader told me to go and see if I could find evidence of a firefight and what went on. As soon as I stepped out of the tank I saw American soldiers kicking a head around like a soccer ball.

“That disgusted me and I told my platoon leader that I wanted no part of it,” says Key. “He couldn’t do anything about it, even with his authority, and told me to sit down in the tank. The next day I asked him if anything had been followed up on the incident. I was told to shut the hell up, that it wasn’t my concern.”

We Are The Hollow Men

This is the way the war ends
This is the way the war ends
This is the way the war ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper

Interviews with two dozen Marines in Ramadi, their commanders, and friends and family back home reveal the cost in human terms. Like Jimmy Welter, some Marines in this unit enlisted after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But that patriotic fervor now seems spent. And what the Marines have endured - Welter's story is typical - speaks to the changes that come with war.

During their first tour, Welter and his unit were greeted as liberators. During the second, they fought a growing rebellion. Now, on the third, many say they are angry to be back, shaken by the loss of more friends and feeling old beyond their years.

"I'm 22 years old. It really feels like I'm 30," Welter says. "I've seen more and done more things at 22 than most people have in 40 years."

Evidence of victory is scant, those interviewed by the newspaper say. Some are stunned that, after all the sacrifices they and others have made, so many Iraqis now seem to hate them.

Their choice to serve has put them on the battlefield three times in three years. Now, many say they just want to go home.

Their commander, Lt. Col. Eric Smith, sees the wear and tear.

"This takes a mental toll on these guys," says Smith, 40, of Plano, Texas, who was wounded in combat during a tour last year in another command position.

"I do know they get tired, and I do know they've changed," Smith says. "I mean, their counterparts (back home) are running around getting pissed off because they were unable to register for Psych 303 and they have to start their senior year. These guys are running around worried about being supplied with .50-caliber ammo and not getting shot tomorrow."

The man working to re-enlist them explains the hardships.

"They've done their war, and they're done," says Staff Sgt. William Beschman, the battalion retention officer. Unlike the Marine Corps as a whole, the battle-scarred 1st Battalion, 5th Marines will not meet its re-enlistment goal this year. The largest bonuses in Marine Corps history - a year's salary, or about $20,000 tax-free if they sign up while in Iraq - got few takers. Of 287 first-term Marines in the battalion, just 50 are staying. The goal is 58.

And veterans of the battalion now have a look about them. In Vietnam, it was called the "thousand-yard stare": a weariness devoid of emotion. Cpl. Mike Kelly, 23, wore it as officers award him a Navy commendation for valor at a battalion headquarters ceremony this month.

He's heading home to Boston with hopes of opening a bar. His four-year enlistment - including three tours of duty in Iraq - is almost over. "I just want to live an easy life," he says after the ceremony. "A normal job, nothing fancy. A working stiff. That's my dream."

So does Cpl. Richie Gunter. "I just want to go back to the way things are," says Gunter, 30, who longs to trade Marine fatigues for a T-shirt and jeans and work on the family'stomato farm in Woodland, Calif.

Their loved ones suffer with them. Danielle "Dani" Thurlow of Coloma, Mich., has watched her fiancé, Marine Cpl. Ryan Kling, 22, grow colder and angrier with each tour. "He's pushing his luck," she says.

"I tell a lot of people: I wouldn't wish this on anyone," says Thurlow, 19. "It's very hard. It really is. You're just looking toward the end. That's all you want, is for it to be over."

And Ken Frederking, 69, says he lives in fear that his oldest grandchild, Jimmy Welter, may never find his way home. "What this kid has gone through at his age, it's incredible," the grandfather says. "It just seems like he can't escape."

Keeping in touch with their families - through letters, e-mails and telephone calls - is essential to preserving morale, says Smith, the battalion commander.

"You've got to make sure to not let the Marines get mean," he says. "You can't let the guys go home without their humanity."