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."

Planting Trees in Concrete

Still scanning sermons. This one is at least 7 years old. Posting it here is not a recommendation, per se. I would do a lot of things differently, now; treat the scriptures far differently, and the ideas. Still, it is interesting, in some ways:

TEXT:Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14,2:18-23
Colossians 3:1-11
Luke 12:13-21

The story is told of an Hasidic rabbi in the last century, who refused to promise a friend that he would visit the next day: "'How can you ask me to make such a promise? This evening I must pray and recite "Hear, 0 Israel." When I say these words, my soul goes out to the utmost rim of Iife...Perhaps I shall not die this time either, but how can I now promise to do something at a time after the prayer?'

""Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity." The words mean an utmost limit, an absolute beyond which nothing is left. "Vanity of all vanities;" to the furthest extent imaginable, and then some. Nothing greater can be imagined. All is vanity. Everything. Whatever you consider, says the Teacher, is considered in vain. All is vanity and striving after emptiness.

It's not coincidence that Ecclesiastes comes after the Book of Proverbs in the
Hebrew Scriptures. It is a direct assault on the wisdom of the book it follows, the book that says it is:

For learning about wisdom and instruction,
for understanding words of insight,
for gaining instruction in wise dealing,
righteousness, justice, and equity;
to teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young-
Let the wise also hear and gain in learning,
and the discerning acquire skill,
to understand a proverb and a figure,
the words of the wise and their riddles.

"I, the Teacher," says Ecclesiastes, "when king over Israel in Jerusalem, applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with. I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind." But the book of Proverbs also says: ''The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:" And it says this: ''The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction." Both books, then, claim the same author; both books claim the same purpose.

Proverbs teaches you to be shrewd, knowledgeable, and prudent, to gain in learning, and acquire skill. Ecclesiastes says that all these things are vanity, and striving after wind. Because Proverbs can be understood to say that you can control your destiny; and Ecclesiastes says, your only destiny, is death. Whatever you do, says the Teacher, someone else will inherit, and what good is it to you in the grave? And will they be wise, as you were, or a fool, and make a mockery of your life's ambition, your desire to leave something behind, something permanent to show you were here? In the face of that, would you long, then, for immortality, so you might live forever and always be in control? Even if your days were endless, that would not be a joy. "What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun? For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity."

Hear this, all you peoples;
give ear, all inhabitants of the world,
Truly, no ransom avails for one's life,
there is no price one can give to God for it.
For the ransom of life is costly,
and can never suffice

that one should live on forever
and never see the grave.

When we look at the wise, they die;
fool and dolt perish together
and leave their wealth to others.
Their graves are their homes forever,
their dwelling places to all generations,
though they named lands their own.

Or, as Jesus says in the parable: "'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."

When the rabbi stood and prayed "Hear, 0 Israel," he was reciting the prayer about the very nature of God, and the very nature of life: "Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord is God, the Lord is One!" This is why his soul goes out to the utmost rim of life. His life, all life, is in and from the Creator. The vanity is not life; it is the arrogance to think that we understand life, that we have control, in some measure, of our life. To approach God is to approach the utmost rim of life. We stand always before the God who could say to anyone of us: 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'" "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge."

Planting trees in concrete is an absurdity. It's a contradictory effort, doomed to failure. Vanity of vanities; it is certainly an empty striving, a useless concept. But believing that God is real in our world, and then acting like it, is to engage in an absurdity, too. To say God is concrete, God is real, as real as the pew you are sitting on, the walls around you, the person next to you, is like trying to plant a tree where no tree will grow. You can say the words; but you know the minute you say them, that it is pointless; it can't even be considered. "When I say those words, my soul goes out to the utmost rim of life..." Who can say that, and say it makes sense? But if God is the Creator of the Universe, is the source of life and can take our life without a moment's notice, who can say it also is not true?" If God is present in our lives, in our world, who can say that God does not overwhelm everything we consider expected and ordinary? ''The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge." But it's like planting trees in concrete.

In our concrete reality, in our little worlds, there is no room for God. The vanity of vanities is imagining that God fits into our everyday routine, that our ordinary lives can contain the Creator of the Universe. It is like planting trees in concrete, to suppose such a thing; an absurdity, but at the same time, you do not realize what you are doing. Surely this is vanity, and chasing after wind.

Because when God enters our little worlds, everything is undone. In the parable of the rich fool, there was no room for God; and when God intruded, the rich fool's world was blown apart. He finds himself flung to the utmost rim of life, and finds he cannot now return. Surely all worldly pursuits are vanity and striving after emptiness, in the presence of the Creator of the Universe.

All our efforts are planting trees in concrete; except we "seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God." "Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth," Paul says, Christ says, Ecclesiastes says: ''for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory." All is vanity because you are already dead; because you life is hidden with Christ in God; hidden, and nothing you can do will cause it to be revealed. So everything we do is like planting trees in concrete; except we know we will be revealed with Christ in glory; and we know that, even though planting trees this way is vanity, with God, all things are possible. And what a fearsome knowledge that is.

Amen.

"Teach us to care and not to care/Teach us to sit still"

From the Guardian this morning:

One of the men accused of taking part in the failed terror attacks in London on 21 July has claimed the bomb plot was directly inspired by Britain's involvement in the Iraq war.

In a remarkable insight into the motives behind the alleged would-be bombers, Hussain Osman, arrested in Rome on Friday, has revealed how the suspects watched hours of TV footage showing grief-stricken Iraqi widows and children alongside images of civilians killed in the conflict. He is alleged to have told prosecutors that after watching the footage: 'There was a feeling of hatred and a conviction that it was necessary to give a signal - to do something.'

But some of the Italian media reports told a conflicting story. Some reports quoted Osman as saying: 'I hardly know anything. They only gave me a rucksack to carry on the tube in London. We wanted to stage an attack, but only as a show. Who gave me the explosive? I don't know. I didn't know him. I don't remember. We didn't want to kill, we just wanted to scare people.'

Milan's Corriere della Sera newspaper said Osman first told authorities he did not know what was in the backpack he took on the London underground, then changed his version, saying he was told the attackers were only supposed to carry out 'demonstrative' attacks. But the Rome daily Il Messaggero said the suspect told investigators: 'We were supposed to blow ourselves up.'

Osman allegedly said: 'More than praying we discussed work, politics, the war in Iraq ... we always had new films of the war in Iraq ... more than anything else those in which you could see Iraqi women and children who had been killed by US and UK soldiers.'

There is a criminal difference here, in these two stories. One describes, at least under U.S. jurisprudence, a more serious crime than the other. But the question is: is there a moral difference?

Consider the first story: roused to anger by videotape (or propaganda? let us be even-handed) about the invasion of Iraq, the bomber is stirred into action. Is there a moral distinction to be found there, between whatever might have stirred this man (or others?) into action, and the stories of "WMD," "rape rooms," "nuclear weapons," and "mass graves" that were proclaimed endlessly by the U.S. government?

Perhaps not. Now, the second story: "'We didn't want to kill, we just wanted to scare people.'" Shock and awe, is what our military called it. And probably most of us thought that meant "we didn't want to kill, we just wanted to scare people." Certainly it was sold to us that way: a massive show of force that would "shock" resistance, "awe" them with our superior strength, and cow them into submission without casualties. Well, too many casualties. Our American media complied by not showing pictures of the wounded children, the wailing women (remember how much grief Michael Moore took for that in "Fahrenheit 9/11"? I know my church's national newsletter received many angry responses for showing a picture of a girl whose foot was literally blown off because of American "shock and awe" bombing.) So, does intent change the moral culpability of the bombers? Had the bombs killed people, would they be less than "terrorists" because they had no intention of murdering anyone? Does a moral system hold the criminal less culpable for murder because he didn't intend to kill? A legal system may recognize a lesser crime of homicide, but it is still homicide.

But there's the final issue: they fed themselves spiritually, not on prayer, but on images of death and dismemberment. What, one has to wonder, would have happened if they had prayed more, and concerned themselves less with their powerlessness?

And again, how are we different from this? Our propaganda reminds us of our danger, and spurs us to action, just as their's does. But if we turn away from such poisoned meat, and feed on prayer, prayer which necessarily takes us out of ourselves, prayer which necessarily makes us become more, not less, vulnerable: true prayer, in other words, rather than the prayers the world would teach us; what would happen then?

None dare call it terrorism

Chuck Currie directs me to this, evidence that "terrorism" is not confined to "foreigners" nor to Islam.

St. John’s Reformed United Church of Christ was burned on July 9, just days after the UCC’s national conference passed a resolution backing equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. The text of the messages spray-painted on the church referred to this issue: “Gays lover,” “Lesb hell,” “UCC siners” and “sinners.”

“The writing on the wall, literally, tells the story,” Foster said, “This was a politically motivated attack because of the gay issue, and the FBI is going to investigate it.”

St. John’s is the third UCC church in the Shenandoah Valley that has been intentionally damaged in recent months.

....

After the Middlebrook attack, the News Virginian, a newspaper in Waynesboro, Va., published a story about the responses of three white supremacist groups to the arson.

In that story, Bill White, a Virginia-based spokesperson for the National Socialist Movement, also known as the American Nazi Party, condemned the arson but said that he understood how the actions of the United Church of Christ could provoke such a reaction.

White told the Blade that he believes homosexuality is a mental illness, and that the UCC is a “heretic” church.

“Their encouragement of homosexuality is simply a modern extension of their 200-plus-year history of anti-social, anti-white and anti-Southern activities,” White said.

The United Church of Christ was active in the anti-slavery movement, and was the first church to ordain women, African Americans and gays, according to Currie.

....
Earlier this summer, White wrote that “taking on” liberal churches should be a top priority for area Nazis.

White told the Blade that his group is discussing “targeting pro-homosexual events being organized by local ‘gay’ churches.” He went on to name the Metropolitan Community Church of the Blue Ridge in Roanoke as a specific target of his group’s efforts, which he said included distributing messages on leaflets and through direct mail.

I'm guessing "anti-Southern" activities include not only the work of the anti-slavery work of the Congregational church, but the anti-poverty work of the German E&R church, such as Back Bay Mission in Biloxi, Mississippi.

And, of course, will any of this even be noticed by the pundits and the media pooh-bahs? And if it is, how likely will they be to lay blame on the churches themselves?

By tomorrow morning

This will be all over the blogosphere. Still, it's worth reading more than once:

The point is that to the extent that the French have less income than we do, it's mainly a matter of choice. And to see the consequences of that choice, let's ask how the situation of a typical middle-class family in France compares with that of its American counterpart.

The French family, without question, has lower disposable income. This translates into lower personal consumption: a smaller car, a smaller house, less eating out.

But there are compensations for this lower level of consumption. Because French schools are good across the country, the French family doesn't have to worry as much about getting its children into a good school district. Nor does the French family, with guaranteed access to excellent health care, have to worry about losing health insurance or being driven into bankruptcy by medical bills.

Perhaps even more important, however, the members of that French family are compensated for their lower income with much more time together. Fully employed French workers average about seven weeks of paid vacation a year. In America, that figure is less than four.

So which society has made the better choice?

....
American conservatives despise European welfare states like France. Yet many of them stress the importance of "family values." And whatever else you may say about French economic policies, they seem extremely supportive of the family as an institution. Senator Rick Santorum, are you reading this?

Paul Krugman.

Tomorrow: Desert Fathers. Tonight....

Beim Schlafengehen (Upon Going to Sleep)--Hermann Hesse

Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht,
soll mein sehnliches Verlangen
fruendlich die gestirnte Nacht
wei ein müdes Kind empfangen.

Händem laßt von allen Tun,
stirn, vergiß du alles Denken,
alle meine Sinne nun
wollen sich in Schlummer senken,

Und die Seele, unbewacht,
will in freien Flügeln schweben,
um im Zauberkreis der Nacht
tief und tausendfach zu leben.



Made tired by the day now,
My passionate longing
Shall welcome the starry night
Like a tired child.

Hands, leave all your activity,
Brow, forget all thought,
For all my senses
Are about to go to sleep.

And my soul, unguarded,
Will float freely,
In order to live in the magic circle of the night
Deep and a thousand fold.

In the Strauss setting there is an interlude between the second and third verse where a violin solo builds the melody in Straussian fashion to a musical height that prompts the soprano to come in powerfully and proclaim: "Und die Seeeeeeeeelllllllleeeeeee", until it trails away, almost as if the thought cannot be finished after that.

Allright, my description does it no credit at all, nor lends it any credence. I haven't the vocabulary for it, and even if I did, it would not replace the experience.

But the words give you some flavor of the piece.

So I cheered up....

And sure enough, it got worse:

DENVER (AP) - A National Guardsman testifying at a hearing for U.S. soldiers accused of killing an Iraq general said he saw classified U.S. personnel beat prisoners with a sledgehammer handle and mock the general's death, according to a transcript.

The transcript, obtained by The Denver Post, includes an exchange during the hearing that suggests the CIA was involved.

Sgt. 1st Class Gerold Pratt of the Utah National Guard said he saw unidentified U.S. personnel use the 15-inch wooden handle to hit prisoners.

``They'd ask you a question, and if they didn't like it, they'd hit you,'' he said, according to the transcript obtained this week by the Post under a court order. Pratt testified at the hearing in March.

The hearing will determine whether three soldiers from Fort Carson will stand trial for the death of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush during an interrogation in 2003.

The soldiers have denied wrongdoing and say commanders sanctioned their actions.

No, really, a lot worse:

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) - The use of dogs during interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was recommended by the commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention center during a visit in 2003, the former warden of Abu Ghraib said.

``We understood that he was sent over by the secretary of defense,'' Maj. David Dinenna testified Wednesday during a hearing for two Army dog handlers accused of prisoner abuse.

Dinenna also testified that teams of trainers were sent to Abu Ghraib from Guantanamo Bay to try to incorporate certain interrogation techniques in Iraq.

The defense maintains the use of unmuzzled dogs to intimidate Abu Ghraib inmates was sanctioned high up in the chain of command and was not just a game played by two rogue soldiers, as the government claims.

``They did what they were instructed to do,'' defense attorney Harvey J. Volzer said.

Prosecutors say the two soldiers used their dogs in a competition to frighten prisoners into urinating on themselves in December 2003 and January 2004.

And it all depends on what the meaning of "is," is. Apparently:

AMERICA AGAIN parsed the treatment of prisoners from 9/11 and Iraq. A military investigation of alleged abuses at Guantanamo Bay found that, yes, some prisoners were physically and mentally roughed up under techniques approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The most notable detainee was Mohamed Qahtani, the alleged ''20th hijacker" of 9/11.

Yes, the military admits, Qahtani was led around on a dog leash and forced to do dog tricks. Yes, he was forced to stand naked in front of female soldiers, wear a bra, and wear a woman's thong panties on his head. Yes, he was forced to dance with a male interrogator. Yes, he was told he was a homosexual and that his mother and sister were whores. Yes, some other prisoners were treated in a similar manner.

Yes, the military admits that this was ''abusive and degrading."

But, no, the military said it was not torture. Lieutenant General Randall Schmidt told the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday that, overall, ''detention and interrogation operations were safe, secure, and humane."

If you need me, I'll be reading about the Desert Fathers. Suddenly 4th century Egypt looks very inviting.

"You have heads, use them"--Jesus of Nazareth, per Dom Crossan

The Kingdom of God is like this

A woman took some leaven
hid it in her dough
and baked a batch of bread

(But how is the Kingdom of God like that?)

Bread-baking is magic.

Professional bakers, who are trained in the science the rest of us call "baking," will scoff at that, and rightly so. But right now I'm preparing what will be four loaves of French bread, and it will take over 24 hours. When I started baking bread sporadically a long time ago, it was the most precarious of processes, and only occassionally would the gods of bread, or the biochemistry of yeast, smile on my efforts. More often than not my mixture of flour and water and sugar and yeast would just remain wet glop, fit only for throwing out. And for the longest time I was convinced that the timing of the yeast was critical, the temperature of the water crucial, the ratio of yeast to flour the essence of the thing.

The bread I'm baking now will end up using 8 or more cups of flour, but only 2 and a half teaspoons of yeast. The water for the yeast I heat in an old Amana Radarange, to about 130 F, if the temperature probe still works. But that's not the miraculous part. I mix flour and yeast and warm water, in small measure, together and leave it alone for 12 hours. Then I add more water, this time only at room temperature, and more flour, but no more yeast, and leave that for several hours. Finally, I'll combine more water and more flour, mix that together, add the levain that has been sitting for several hours bubbling to itself, let that rise; shape it into loaves, let those raise; then finally bake them in the oven.

And it will turn out as risen loaves, not glop. I've done this before, and it's never failed.

Bread is magic. Something about watching it rise and heave and grow. Well, it's alive, isn't it?

Except it isn't, really. The bread "grows" by the yeast dying, choking on its own excrement, as it were: carbon dioxide. Waste gases. The same stuff that causes cows and horses and other dead bodies to bloat in the heat. The kind of growth Jesus' original audience associated with bread. One more reason unleavened bread was preferable to risen bread: it was "clean." Bread made with yeast rose by decay, so far as they could tell (and they were right); it might produce a toothier loaf, but it was by an unclean process.

And besides, women baked bread, and women were unclean. So they couldn't be the bearers, much less the symbol, of the kingdom of God. Could they? How is the kingdom of God like that?

Some translations of the original Gospel story (Matthew 13:33, Luke 13:20-21) translate the "measure of flour" into "fifty pounds of flour," as if the point of the parable is to emphasize the absurdity of the small amount of leaven that affects so much material. And, for Jesus' audience, leaven is a metaphor for corruption. (The connection is made in the institution of the Passover in Exodus 12:15). Is it, however, really so absurd? 2.5 teaspoons will prove sufficient to leaven 8 cups of flour. A "measure" of leaven might not raise 50 pounds; but, as we say, one bad apple will spoil the whole bunch.

So how is the kingdom of God like that?

In the time it has taken me to write this, the levain has almost doubled in size. Bread is magic. Is that it? Is the kingdom of God something that grows and swells, and only a tiny amount is necessary to do the job? Is it unstoppable, and corrupting? But corrupting of what? Of what God declares "good"? Or of what we declare "good"? "Come, buy food without money, wine without price." What would happen if that kind of thinking start spreading around? "A new commandment I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you are to love one another." Or that kind of thing? Where would it all end? With all the flour corrupted? Or with all the loaves risen?

Or maybe just with fresh bread for everybody. Which might suffice.

We don't need no stinkin' IPods!

"List ten songs that you are currently digging...it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to."

Hmm….

Well, Mr. left rev. is a singer/songwriter/guitarist of no small talent. His work tends to run to mellow ballads, somewhat derivative of Cat Stevens, but unique to his perspective and chord preferences. When we were dating, he wrote a song or two for me and recorded them on tape so I could listen to them when I was at the University of ----------, completing my last year of undergrad. As a courting method, it was very effective.

A true artist is married to his or her craft, so in this respect, he is a happy bigamist and I am cheerfully accepting of my potential rival. After all, I still get original songs composed for me that reflect the depth and joys of our fifteen year marriage, and I still get to enjoy the original ones that made me realize that I’d found the right person with whom to share my life.

He’s currently making some compilation CDs, so I’m grooving on some precious old numbers and his latest celebrations of his life and his faith. With that extended introduction, I offer for your perusal my current ten greatest hits:

"Listen to the Quiet"
"Rescue Me"
"Dancing in my Heart"
"Blind Rush"
"On the Mend"
"Beside the Fire" (an adaptation of a J.R.R. Tolkein poem from Fellowship of the Ring)
"Wondrous, Whispering Spirit"
"When Jesus Walked on Water"
"My Song"
"It’s the Truth"

There you have it. And they’re mine...ALL MINE!

Umm…Mr. left rev. just told me not to be so selfish…Sorry about that.

Otter will sleep with the fishes.....

"List ten songs that you are currently digging...it doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're no good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the ten songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to."

You really want to know?

Or, rather: do I really want to tell you? [I've come back to add a few explanatory comments in brackets, in case you're noticing]

"Elvis is Everywhere", by Mojo Nixon

"The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun", by Julie Brown

"What Wondrous Love is This?", by Anonymous Four

"The Origin of Fire" (the whole album), by Anonymous Four (yeah, I broke the rules; but Otter started it; and I'll break another before I'm through)[songs by Hildgeard von Bingen]

"Hurt", by Johnny Cash

"I Wish I Could Forget You", by Sondheim (perf. by Mandy Patinkin)

"Pleasant Little Kingdom/Too Many Mornings", by Sondheim (perf. by Mandy Patinkin; same album. One lead to the other, and now I'm hooked again on both).

"The Great Selchie of Schule Skerry", by Judy Collins

"Golden Apples of the Sun", by Judy Collins

"Ordinary Town", by Dave Carter and Tracey Grammer

"Beim Schlafengehen", from the Four Last Songs, by Strauss (perf. Kiri Te Kanawa)[Okay, le tme explain this, so I don't seem quite so NYT-ish elitist. This is the song used in "The Year of Living Dangerously," when Mel Gibson's character "turns" on "Billy," and as Mel leaves the music comes up with Dame Te Kanawa and Strauss and the strings and...well, it still brings tears to me eyes. I'm always "digging" this one.

"Gymnopedies", by Erik Satie [actually, I like to play these on the piano. About the only things I can still play, though I aspire to Bach again, someday]

Ten, right? Well, went to eleven there. Good enough. And the curse is broken here. Besides, this is a dead end. Who could I send it on to? Well, left rev., of course, still has her shot. We wait in patient anticipation....

What I am contemplating

(aside from the untimely death of Otter) is the concept of power and resistance; the very fact that there is no power without resistance. Which means, of course, that there is no resistance without power.

So it seems the two need each other. If we are going to stand in resistance, don't we have to create a power to stand against? Isn't this precisely what the right wing in America has done, from the stereotype of "liberals" (political correctness, college professors, bomb-throwing radicals, Hilary Clinton, what have you) to right wing Christians, apparently convinced despite the domination of Christianity in Western culture since the time of Constantine, that they are a persecuted minority?

But if we do not resist evil, don't we in fact abet evil? Well, perhaps it depends on your definition of evil.

Now, I will admit that, like the Mad Farmer, I am inclined to: "Be like the fox/who makes more tracks than necessary,/some in the wrong direction," but I do it all in service of the goal, which is to: "Practice resurrection." But I have begun reading the sayings of the Desert Fathers (not just the ones I had from Merton's selection, which I've mentioned before), and I stumble over statements like this, from the introduction:

There was no gentleness about the conduct of their own lifestyle [i.e., of the Desert Fathers] but their approach to others was different. They believed always in the sincerity of the commitment of each one and therefore behaved to each other in ways that would help and encourage them in the life they had chosen. If there was failure or weakness in anyone, it was at once understood that this was not what that person really desired, and therefore the weak were not blamed but encouraged to start over again." The Desert Father: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, tr. Benedicta Ward (New York: Penguin 2003, p. xiii)

Or, as Abba Poeman puts it:

"A brother asked Poeman, 'What am I to do, for I become weak just by sitting in my cell?' He said, 'Despise no one, condemn no one, revile no one: and God will give you quietness, and you will sit at peace in your cell.' "

Now, of course, that seems centered solely on members of the community. What of evil, from outside the community?

When Macarius was living in Egypt, one day he came across a man who had brought a donkey to his cell and was stealing his possessions. As though he was a passer-by who did not live there, he went up to the thief and helped him to load the beast, and sent him peaceably on his way, saying to himself, 'We brought nothing into this world (I Tim. 6:7) but the Lord gave; He willed, so it is done: blessed be the Lord in all things.'

Welcome to China!

The gateway to....well, I have no idea what gateway this is to. But it looks Chinese, which is good enough for me.






In some cultures, of course, this might be considered an obscene gesture. Or at least an impolite suggestion.












And, of course, if this is China, this must be a panda!