Fifty Years On

The scene is the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, established in 1932 by a student of Reinhold Niebuhr's. It was a "communist training school" because it was teaching about race relations and was a center for training civil rights activists. As you can tell from the tenor of the questions of Dr. King, it's pretty clear this is a subversive place: blacks and whites, men and women, are sitting together as equals.

MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN:

While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine goodwill and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Dr. King's letter.  It bears reading in its entirety.  Today is also the day Pat Buchanan wrote this:

When Martin Luther King Jr. called on the nation to “live up to the meaning of its creed,” he heard an echo from a thousand pulpits. Treating black folks decently was consistent with what Christians had been taught. Dr. King was pushing against an open door.

Priests and pastors marched for civil rights. Others preached for civil rights. But if the gay rights agenda is imposed, we could have priests and pastors preaching not acceptance but principled rejection.

Prelates could be declaring from pulpits everywhere that the triumph of gay rights is a defeat for God’s Country, and the new laws are immoral and need neither be respected nor obeyed.

Something akin to this could be in the cards if the homosexual rights movement is victorious – a public rejection of the new laws by millions and a refusal by many to respect or obey them.

The culture war in America today may be seen as squabbles in a day-care center compared to what is coming. A new era of civil disobedience may be at hand.

Dr. King said this in his letter about civil disobedience:

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.....

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise....

We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?"...
.
You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.

I would really like to hear Pat Buchanan explain how laws recognizing gays as human beings are "unjust laws" equivalent to those Dr. King opposed with his words and his body.  I would appreciate seeing him lead a movement of civil disobedience with acts of purification and preparation and intense questions of "are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?"  But I really want to know how equal legal treatment for gays and lesbians inflicts on the minority of people who bother to read WorldNet Daily a burden that is not binding on the rest of the country that doesn't bother with such dribble.  And then he can compare his sufferings to those Dr. King outlines above.  I hope he can be just as specific.

In God We Trust. All others pay cash.

I have my problems with Christian salvation, and so with most theories of soteriology.  Some of my thoughts on this subject are quite technical and almost systematic; some, less so.

Take, for example, the simple statement "Jesus Saves."  What does it mean?  If it's a sign posted by a bank; one thing.  In the picture above, another.  I even saw a picture on Google of Jesus pulling a man out of the water by the man's wrist.  Is that what the statement means?  Is that even a good metaphor for what the statement means, a better visual representation of the "correct meaning" than the picture above?

No, probably not.

Usually we mean something like this:

Which begs the question still: what does this sentence mean?

Usually, salvation from damnation; from an eternity in hell, in the burning flames of Hades, in the sulfurous tides of the land where those who enter must abandon all hope.

What a Chick tract means, in other words.  I've never been a fan of Chick tracts, but then Hitler liked dogs, too, so Chick tracts are not reason enough to set aside the traditional doctrines of Christianity.

Well, not Chick tracts alone; but the whole idea of salvation has, by and large, been a club Christians have used to beat up either other non-Christians, or other Christians they deemed insufficiently "Christian" enough for the holy tribute of salvation.  Soteriology is what led to Calvin's bizarre and ultimately perverse doctrine of the elect, and a soteriology his followers used to turn Christianity inside out.  I am thinking particularly of TULIP (which, no, is not Calvinism; except it is, once the doctrines move far enough away from Calvin's Institutes.  I am not blaming Calvin for the state of Christianity today; but I am blaming soteriology, which too many Christians think is the be-all and end-all of Christianity.).  TULIP is nothing more than a cudgel to be used against to motivate people to act as we would wish them to (and as we are sure God would wish them to).  Indeed, making people behave has become the primary purpose of soteriology.

We use it to make people join "our" church, to make people think as we do, or just to make people be civilized.  The root of the fear that the "death of God" would undermine society (and the modern day attack on Christianity, that morality can only come from a deity) was that, absent a fear of damnation (God is dead), what would keep the great unwashed on the straight and narrow?  That it had never kept the leadership in line was beside the point; but directly to the point of the purpose of soteriology (which is, after all, a human doctrine.  I don't remember Christ espousing one in the gospels.)

So how about the sheer damage proponents of "traditional" Christian soteriology do?  I've yet to meet a person whose theology emphasized individual salvation who didn't use that emphasis to deny comfort and succor to others.  Oh, they make nice noises about helping the destitute, but as far as really doing it, not much happens.  Individual salvation means you are individually responsible for the state of your immortal soul.  And if you are individually responsible for the state of your soul, you are individually responsible for the state of your life.  In this understanding, the community doesn't exist to take you in, it exists to set you straight, to straighten you out, to determine whether or not you are worthy of admission to the company of the Blessed.  Any help is short term and blunted, and meant to get you back to being responsible for yourself again, the way God intended!  Living as the widow who fed Elijah is simply not on:

After a while the stream dried up, for there had been no rain in the land. Then the word of the Lord came to him: “Go now to Zarephath, a village of Sidon, and stay there; I have commanded a widow there to feed you.’ He went off to Zarephath, and when he reached the entrance to the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks. He called to her, ‘Please bring me a little water in a pitcher to drink.’ As she went to fetch it, he called after her, ‘Bring me, please, a piece of bread as well.’ But she answered, “As the Lord your God lives, I have no food baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a flask. I am just gathering two or three sticks to go and cook it for my son and myself before we die.’ ‘Have no fear,’ Elijah said, ‘go and do as you have said. But first make me a small cake from what you have and bring it out to me, and after that make something for your son and yourself. For this is the word of the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of flour will not give out, nor the flask of oil fail, until the Lord sends rain on the land.’ She went and did as Elijah had said, and there was food for him and for her family for a long time. The jar of flour did not give out, nor did the flask of oil, as the word of the Lord foretold through Elijah. 1 Kings 17:7-16 (REB)

There are nuances, of course; variations.  Not everyone who believes in individual salvation as the central doctrine of Christianity agrees with Baroness Thatcher:

They stem not from the social but from the spiritual side of our lives, and personally, I would identify three beliefs in particular:

First, that from the beginning man has been endowed by God with the fundamental right to choose between good and evil. And second, that we were made in God's own image and, therefore, we are expected to use all our own power of thought and judgement in exercising that choice; and further, that if we open our hearts to God, He has promised to work within us. And third, that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, when faced with His terrible choice and lonely vigil chose to lay down His life that our sins may be forgiven. I remember very well a sermon on an Armistice Sunday when our Preacher said, "No one took away the life of Jesus , He chose to lay it down".

Thatcher carefully distinguishes "spiritual" from "social," and makes it clear throughout that her emphasis is on the individual, that, as she famously said elsewhere, "Society does not exist."  "Man," in that first sentence, is clearly an individual:  only individuals choose good or evil.  And it is up to us, as individuals, "to use all our own (!) power of thought and judgment in exercising that choice."  And it is only after we have done so that we can "open our hearts [not the seat of thought and judgment] to God," who has "promised to work within us."  Because, after all, that's what Jesus did.

Which is one of the weirder theories of the crucifixion I think I've ever heard.  It's supported, to some degree, by John's gospel; but everybody agrees John's Jesus is the least human of the four representations in the canon.

Anyway....

The third is the oddest also because it doesn't connect to the acts of thought and judgement of the individual, or even of God entering your heart and working within you.  What it does connect with, is that even God has to make individual choices.  What it tells me is that even God is all alone.

Which is a very chilling place to put the emphasis (and not at all what the author of John's Gospel meant).  If Thatcher means to use it to make God "one of us," then it's even worse.  But it does explain the complete lack of Christian humility in Thatcher's speech.  Why be humble when you are equal to God?

Follow that reasoning very far, or even take it up at all, and you wind up at Mars Hill Presbyterian Church, which is not a place I want to be:

Mars Hill has not entirely dispensed with megachurch marketing tactics. Its success in one of the most liberal and least-churched cities in America depends on being sensitive to the body-pierced and latte-drinking seekers of Seattle. Ultimately, however, Driscoll's theology means that his congregants' salvation is not in his hands. It's not in their own hands, either — this is the heart of Calvinism. Ultimately, however, Driscoll's theology means that his congregants' salvation is not in his hands. It's not in their own hands, either — this is the heart of Calvinism.

Human beings are totally corrupted by original sin and predestined for heaven or hell, no matter their earthly conduct. We all deserve eternal damnation, but God, in his inscrutable mercy, has granted the grace of salvation to an elect few. While John Calvin's 16th-century doctrines have deep roots in Christian tradition, they strike many modern evangelicals as nonsensical and even un-Christian. If predestination is true, they argue, then there is no point in missions to the unsaved or in leading a godly life. And some babies who die in infancy — if God placed them among the reprobate — go straight to hell with the rest of the damned, to "glorify his name by their own destruction," as Calvin wrote. Since the early 19th century, most evangelicals have preferred a theology that stresses the believer's free decision to accept God's grace. To be born again is a choice God wants you to make; if you so choose, Jesus will be your personal friend.

And we all know personal friends are people just like us.  Why be humble when God is your BFF?  Why be a servant when you pal around with the Logos that created the cosmos?  A little of that goes a long way, and it goes a long way in the wrong direction, for my taste.

But are we totally corrupted?  Do we all deserve eternal damnation?  Is that any better than Jesus being my BFF?  And can I set any of this aside without completely re-writing traditional Christian soteriology?

Even Luther runs afoul of his own reasoning on this.  Luther decided it was God's grace that saved us, and that God's grace is wholly unmerited, because there is nothing we can do to merit it.  Yet we must do something.  We must choose to accept that grace.  Apparently if we don't, we're still damned.  Which means we were damned from the beginning, damned before birth, and only the right choice will save us.  Which means the grace is not unmerited; we only merit it if, like the characters given the decision to choose the chalice in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," we choose wisely.  Everyone watching that film knows the Nazi will not choose wisely.  He's the bad guy, they never make wise decisions.  He doesn't deserve grace because he's made too many bad choices.  He deserves only damnation.  But to switch back to Luther, we've all made bad choices, we all deserve damnation.  How is it this one choice determines our salvation?  And if it does, how is grace then unmerited?  Are we left only with the simplistic version of Pascal's wager:  it's better that I choose God than not, just to be safe?  What kind of choice is that?  What kind of soteriology is that?

So eventually grace comes to us because we make the right choice or we think the right thought or we say the right words (whether we mean them or not, even God doesn't know).  What is the point of this tail-chasing?  Historically it's been to establish precisely what Jesus specifically preached against:  a hierarchy where the believers, or at the worst extreme the "elect," get to claim privileges for themselves above all others.  And that is not only a perversion of the most basic Christian teachings, it's reprehensible.  Dare I say, it is the fundamental heresy?

If I profess a soteriology now, it is a soteriology of life, not an after-life.  My sympathies are with the nuns and monks who work especially with the poor, the ones who, as Windhorse noted:

... are concerned with trying to find food and clothing and medicine for the least among us, not lecturing them on sin or hypostatic union. Mother Teresa did not try and "save" Hindus or Muslims or Sikhs, just help them. As a result, she has become a powerful and inspiring example of Christian values while, conversely, the likes of salvationists like Jimmy Swaggart and Ted Haggard and Pat Robertson have done immeasurable [harm] to the Christian message.

I have never been so comfortable with Christianity as I have in those moments when I realized I was trying to help someone in the name of Christ, rather than to "save" them from a fate I don't think anyone is born to deserve.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly....

I gotta wonder what people think "Christian" really is....

"IT IS hard to imagine a prime minister doing such a thing now, and even then it seemed rather surprising."

A Prime Minister, yes; especially given the English experience with Puritanism.  An American politician, even an American President?  Not so hard.

I pick this up via the inestimable Grandmere Mimi, who always gives me another reason to blog on.  The original is here.  Now let's get back to it:

In May 1988 Margaret Thatcher went to the General Assembly of the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland and gave what would soon be called the Sermon on the Mound. It was an impassioned statement of a certain form of Christianity. The Conservative leader stressed individual salvation over social reform, the legitimacy of moneymaking when combined with altruism, and the “responsibility that comes with freedom and the supreme sacrifice of Christ”.

The responsibility, apparently, to get rich and then lord it over those who didn't because, well, you know; if you aren't rich, God doesn't really approve of you.

It was never hard to see the influence of Methodism, born as a reaction to the complacency and privilege of 18th-century Anglicanism, on Mrs Thatcher. She believed in thrift and hard work, and liked the advice of John Wesley, Methodism’s founder, to earn, save and only then give as much as possible. The acts of generosity listed in the New Testament, from the Good Samaritan’s to that of the woman who anointed Christ’s feet, were possible only because the donors had money, she noted.

Oh, let me start here, and call "bullsgeschicte," the way we used to in seminary (all the best scriptural exegetes are German, you see).  You give only from your abundance?  Let's start with Elijah and the widow, shall we?  And then move on to the widow's mite.  Should we point out the generosity of the father of the Prodigal Son is actually, and especially by Baronness Thatcher's lights, a madman and a dangerous radical?  That the woman who anointed Jesus' feet was either rich (Matthew's version) or a prostitute (Luke's).   I don't mean to offend the Methodists in the room, but if that was Wesley's idea (we can only be charitable from our excess), then Wesley was full of...well, I've already named it, haven't I?

No, I am not terribly charitable on this particular subject.  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.  Now let's move on.

As I said at Wounded Bird, remind me of the beggars Jesus told to:  "Get a job!"  Remind me of the poor and the destitute Jesus said were unworthy of his attention; that he told to come back when they had a little money, because they weren't worth his time otherwise.  The ptochoi he said were lazy rotters who deserved their state because he didn't have enough in the till at the moment to spare a coin or two, or even the kind word (gotta save those, too, ya know.  Toss 'em around too freely you debase the coinage.)  Don't you remember when Jesus said "Congratulations, you rich!  You've made it to the top!  God is well pleased with you!"

What?  Jesus never said that.  Well, he should have.

And Baroness Thatcher was expressing a "certain form of Christianity"?  Say, rather, that Charles Dickens was expressing a "certain form of Christianity"  in his most famous work, A Christmas Carol.  What Thatcher was expressing was much closer to the ideas of Malthus, who, I remind everyone again, was an economist:

 " A man who is born into a world already possessed, if he cannot get subsistence from his parents on whom he has a just demand, and if the society do not want his labour, has no claim of right to the smallest portion of food, and, in fact, has no business to be where he is. At nature's mighty feast there is no vacant cover for him. She tells him to be gone, and will quickly execute her own orders, if he does not work upon the compassion of some of her guests."

And, you see, if no one can afford to give you anything well, then, what's to be done for you?  I mean, was Baroness Thatcher her brother's keeper?  What a ridiculous idea!  Especially since everyone knows the great thing is individual salvation and making lots and lots of money, so you can afford to be generous with a bit of it.  But not too much, or you might interfere with the individual's salvation.  Gotta earn that umerited grace, donchaknow?

Because, you know, things were simpler when Jesus was around: 

We must recognise that modern society is infinitely more complex than that of Biblical times and of course new occasions teach new duties. In our generation, the only way we can ensure that no-one is left without sustenance, help or opportunity, is to have laws to provide for health and education, pensions for the elderly, succour for the sick and disabled. 

Which is a) a load of crap, and b) one more reason I find the study of Biblical history so important.  It is far too easy to say "things were different, then," and so slip off any sense of responsibility Christianity may induce in you.  The Romans had as many laws as we do.  What they didn't have was concern for most of the people they ruled over.  Arguing we do that better than the Romans did, is not arguing that we are either a Christian society, or that we've got it all right.  Especially when your next sentence is:

But intervention by the State must never become so great that it effectively removes personal responsibility. The same applies to taxation; for while you and I would work extremely hard whatever the circumstances, there are undoubtedly some who would not unless the incentive was there. And we need their efforts too.

I really don't recall Jesus speaking much about personal responsibility.  Indeed, even his disciples would ask why someone was born blind, or was a beggar, and assume it was the result of someone's sin. Jesus never charged anyone so much as the cost of belief in him (the beating heart of modern soteriology, which is another distinctly Christian problem), yet if we, in his example if not in his name, don't invoke some price for our charity, we run afoul of the great economic terror of "moral hazard."

A hazard that always applies to the poor. but never to the wealthy.  Money is its own morality.


Ms. Thatcher's thesis was that Christianity is about spiritual, not social, redemption.  Let me first say this is the primary reason I no longer value soteriology  I know that's a sweeping statement, but I don't make it lightly.  The emphasis on salvation has, I think, been the single greatest mistake in Christianity.  The famous parable of the sheep and the goats doesn't turn on the purity of intent of the "sheep."  It turns on their behavior, on their willingness to do something for strangers, for the ptochoi, for the sick, for the prisoner.  And God identifies God's self as every one of those persons.  And that identification doesn’t emphasize our life in the afterlife, but our life here and now.  Conveniently the Baroness skips over that inconvenient story.

No surprise there.  The parable from Matthew does nothing to support her thesis: that Christianity is all about the spiritual life, and the spiritual life is all about the individual, and Christianity really has no role in our social life except to make us feel good about being, or wanting to be, wealthy.

Read her whole speech to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; that's what it comes down to.  The idea that spirituality is a communal and social activity, rather than a matter of very personal piety, is not acknowledged.  The idea that spirituality leads one out into the world, that spirituality is the very basis of the basilea tou theou, is never noticed.  And certainly, spirituality is never meant to get in the way of what's really important:

But it is not the creation of wealth that is wrong but love of money for its own sake. The spiritual dimension comes in deciding what one does with the wealth. 

The spiritual dimension, in other words, must mind its place, and offer only counsel; it must never stand in the way of the true purpose of the individual, which is to acquire money.  Social considerations, which can be influenced by spiritual ones, should never get in the way of the individual's pursuit of the individual's interests.  That the individual can't do anything outside a social system, that the individual can't even be born without the social interactions of two people, that money itself is entirely a product of human society, are matters that are never even considered.  That everything we do, we do as social beings, is tacitly disavowed.

Andrew Carnegie would chew her up and spit her out.  That Scotsman understood how he made his wealth was what mattered, and what he did with it did not wipe away the responsibility for how it was earned.

She ends her speech hoping vaguely that the Church will finally teach the world to live in peace; which sounds suspiciously like the Pax Romana, the peace of the powerful free to exploit whomever and whatever suits their accumulation of wealth, which they are then at peace to use for such charitable purposes as they might see fit.  The Church, tacitly, really shouldn't get too involved in that discussion, either.  The Church should just bring us to a state fit to enjoy these comforts without conflict, and then move quietly out of the way, its task performed.  Well done, good and faithful servant;  "I tell you, make use of your ill-gotten gain to make friends for yourselves, so that when the bottom falls out they are there to welcome you into eternal dwelling places."—Luke 16:9 (SV)

Yeah; that's worth applauding.....

"A Father to the fatherless...."

This is really just an excuse to link to this excellent article on day care in America, one that hits home because I knew the story of Jessica Tata and the fire in her day care long before I read this article.

The excuse?  Connect this problem, the problem of day care in America (read the article) with abortion.  You can do it two ways:

1)  the scandal du jour that the national media hasn't covered the case of Kermit Glosnell, because it shows the "ugly side" of abortion.  Bunkum, but if it is true, why wasn't the case of Jessica Tata major news that caused us all to re-examine the national shame of day care?  As the article sensibly points out:

Day care, in other words, has become a permanent reality, although the public conversation barely reflects that fact. The issue of child care is either neglected as a “women’s issue” or obsessed over in mommy-wars debates about the virtues of day care versus stay-at-home moms. Whether out of reluctance to acknowledge a fundamental change in the conception of parenthood—especially motherhood—or out of a fear of expanding the role of government in family life, we still haven’t come to terms with the shift of women from the home to the workplace.

Our national dialogue is dominated by the controversies swirling around abortion.  On the question of what to do with the kids we already have:  crickets.  We aren't squashing the scandal of an abortion butcher who should have been stopped by state authorities much earlier (he's a licensed MD, after all).  We're ignoring the entire question of how we value human beings, by national discussions dominated by ideas, not human beings.  The abortion debate doesn't focus on the children or the mothers; it focuses on the idea of abortion.  Until the same-sex marriage debate started focusing on human beings, on people, it was all about "marriage" and, tacitly, the "ick" factor of gay sex. Most of us have no experience with gay sex, and marriage is such a complex topic we probably never really think much about what it means to us, or our children, our families, our friends.  Far easier to argue the abstract issue than focus on the concrete one.

And that brings me to point no. 2 in why I bring this up:

2) The problem of abortion is, in large part, an economic problem.  From my limited experience, I suspect many women seek abortions because they literally can't afford the child care.  That sounds terribly mercenary unless you, too, have a job making $12 or less an hour (as some of the people who used Jessica Tata's childcare did).  Then it's a very real consideration.  If you can't find childcare, you can't work, and if you can't work, well....

So what do we do in this country to support childcare?  Again:  crickets.  We scream and yell about abortions, we picket clinics, we even kill doctors who perform the procedure.  But is even the Catholic church deeply invested in child care in America?


Honestly, I don't know any church that is.  Perhaps a local congregation offers a "Mother's Day Out," or provides infant care (one did in Austin, when my daughter was an infant).  But those are tiny, local concerns (and God bless them!).  Nationally, who speaks for child care?  Who speaks up for taking care of the children we have?  Who even mentions providing child care as a helpful alternative to abortion?

Crickets.  Noisy things, aren't they?

Read the article.  It really is that good.

The Way You Do the Things You Do

Why do I want to prop the oven door open when I turn on the broiler?

No, I'm serious.  Who taught me to do this?  Why, in fact, is it such a widespread and ingrained behavior that the instructions for my new oven specify that I NOT leave the door propped open when the broiler is on?  Clearly it's a near universal practice that we all need to discard.  This is the first new oven I've ever bought, but the fact the instructions are there doesn't tell me whether this is a recent change in oven design, or a reference to an old practice that hasn't had any practical purpose for decades.

So where did I learn to do it?  When did it become so normative?

I'm not really interested in the particular so much as in what it represents.  Culture persists and pervades human life this way.  I first became aware of it when I took the pulpit of a 150 year old church, and slowly but surely figured out that church hadn't really changed in the 150 years it had been in existence.  Pastors didn't last long there.  Some churches have one pastor at a time, pretty much for that pastor's life time.  Some churches have a pastor for his (usually) career, but it's only because that pastor was unique to the congregation of his pastorate.  Some churches have a new pastor ever three years or so.

Why?

Churches, like any small group that persists over any amount of time, have a heritage.  It can be likened to genetics:  certain traits persist and are expressed throughout the life of the institution.  It's pretty easy to figure out why with churches:  similar people are attracted to the place, they reinforce and establish certain lines of conduct; people of like mind are drawn there and keep that conduct going.  Pretty soon it's set in stone that "we've always done it this way," and one of the ways they've always done things is to, say, run off the pastor after a year or two.  Why?  Because it's become the "genetic heritage" of the institution.

I grew up in a small church like that.  The members of the congregation changed, but not as fast as the pastors.  And yet the more the membership changed, the more the church stayed the same.

Why?

Texas is another example.  In my lifetime, Texas has gone from a primarily rural state to a primarily urban state.  Texas has more large cities in it than any state outside California:  Dallas-Fort Worth; San Antonio; Houston.  Austin isn't huge, but culturally it is hugely influential, more so than it ever was before.  And yet rural voters still run the state, because urban voters (who elected a lesbian sheriff in Dallas County, once home to some of the most famous televangelists in the country, and who elected a lesbian mayor in Houston) don't vote in large enough numbers to swing statewide elections.

Why?

That's always been true in Texas, but why does it persist?  Texas had such a rise in population due to people moving here that it was popular for several decades to try to persuade people not to come here.  And yet the people who came here didn't change the political or social culture of Texas:  they reinforced it, and recently it's only gotten worse.  Texas Governors used to be low-key to the point of invisibility:  now we've had Rick Perry since Bush went to Washington.  Texas US senators used to be almost as invisible as the governors; after Phil Gramm, now we have Ted Cruz, who makes us almost long for Gramm.  Texas was always a hotbed of crazy conservatism.  It wasn't really a surprise Kennedy was shot here, and not somewhere else.  But now the Tea Party has put that craziness on steroids, and Ted Cruz welcomes the calumny of his fellow Senators as proof he's doing something right.

Why?

Why do such ideas persist and get stronger?  Why didn't the massive influx of people who weren't born and raised in this culture alter the culture?  Why, instead, did we alter them?  Why does it seem, if anything, that the culture has just gotten worse, has doubled-down on its own worst excesses?

It's the peculiar persistence of culture.  It shows up in small things, like calling all soft drinks "Cokes."  In Texas, you ask if someone wants a "coke," and if they do, you then ask what kind they want.  "Coke" is not a trademark, its a generic term, like kleenex or bandaid.  You pick that up in the daily language, you figure out what it means, you carry on with the meaning, especially because if you say "pop" people think you mean your father, and "soda" doesn't mean much at all, except maybe you forgot to say "baking" before it.

It's an interesting thing, this persistence of culture.  Some of it, like the oven door, makes a kind of sense.  I probably learned it from my mother, and continued the practice because "you're supposed to do that."  Some, however, don't quite make as much sense.

I was in a car wreck (no injuries) several years ago, and I told the wrecker driver who showed up to move the car out of traffic.  I knew the police wouldn't care, would welcome it, in fact, because no-fault insurance meant there wouldn't be an extensive police investigation with careful measurements and diagrams and witness statements.  That had been the law in Texas for almost 30 years.  And yet the other driver's attorney showed up and argued with me about moving my car; and she couldn't have been much over 30 years old.  She couldn't have learned in law school that a full investigation of an auto accident is required in any and all cases (frankly, you don't learn much about automobile collision investigations in law school) and clearly fender-benders weren't her usual area of practice.  But why did she continue to insist the law was unchanged since my childhood?  Where did she learn that?

The best explanation I have, is that the culture taught her it was so.  That, in the absence of positive information about traffic accidents, she fell back on the common wisdom that "this is what you do;" even though we stopped doing that probably about the time she was born.

Houston, Texas, is the fourth largest city in the country, and one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the country, too.  In some ways that has changed the culture of the city; in some ways it hasn't changed it at all. But there are precious few "native" Houstonians here,  Most of the population growth in this city, for the past 40 years, has been from people moving here.  And yet the basic culture of the city persists.

The town I grew up in is now populated largely by people of my age, my generation; and yet precious few of the people I grew up with still live there.  Nevertheless, the culture of the place has barely changed.  It is part of the area of Texas that now sends Louis Gohmert to the House of Representatives, and he probably could have gone there when I was a child, too.  Again, the population growth is due more to people moving there than to an explosion of births there; and yet the culture of the place is in fundamental ways barely altered.

Why?

I don't know.  I'm not a sociologist; I'm not an anthropologist.  There is undoubtedly much information in the world on this subject that I simply don't have.  This is not so much a profound mystery of existence as it is a fascinating bit of reality we never really look at.  Culture is a powerful determinant of what we do and why we do it.  But we seldom think of it that way.

No communion for you!

My gut reaction is to wonder when Jesus ever said:  "You!  Away from the table!"  Not to the woman in Luke 7; not to Zaccheus; not even to Judas.

And yet:

A Detroit professor and legal adviser to the Vatican says Catholics who promote gay marriage should not try to receive holy Communion, a key part of Catholic identity. And the archbishop of Detroit, Allen Vigneron, said Sunday that Catholics who receive Communion while advocating gay marriage would "logically bring shame for a double-dealing that is not unlike perjury." The comments of Vigneron and Edward Peters, who teaches Catholic canon law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, are part of a polarizing discussion about gay marriage that echoes debate over whether politicians who advocate abortion rights should receive Communion.

I know the historical power of excommunication, but that was some time ago.  I don't know what the Church position, or its canon law, is now on the situation.  Which is to say I don't know what effect it would have for Catholics to deny themselves Communion, or to be denied (other than the public embarrassment) at the altar.  Considering the number of Catholics who are "lapsed" or no longer regularly attend Mass, I'm guessing this is much more a symbolic gesture than ever it was.  And really, the argument being made is a private one:  the authors want to shame, or self-shame, those they disagree with on a moral issue.  I suppose they are without sin, and so get to cast the first stones....

Because it takes some serious stones to put forward a position like this.

What is the morality of refusing someone a place at the Lord's table?  I understand the arguments that it is to be reserved only for the baptized.  My own UCC has in its heritage a service of preparation every E&R church member had to attend in order to take communion (which, in good Reformed tradition, was only served four times a year).  If you didn't bring your token from that service, you didn't get to go to the altar.

Things change, of course.

There was a church in Austin, Texas that made a member of an atheist.  He confessed no faith in Christ, but he was offered membership anyway.  I agreed with that move, though it created a stir within the Presbytery.  Should non-believers be allowed to the table?  Do we defile it by allowing them to come?  That was a hot issue in seminary.  We were challenged to defend a defended table, or a completely open one.  I don't know anyone who practiced a completely open table (all are welcome), but I don't know of anyone who checked baptismal certificates at the door, either.

Well, you gotta draw the line somewhere, right?

Part of this is the laity once again being more devout than the clergy.  Laity love this kind of stuff:  certain people are allowed here, certain people aren't, and ideally the clergy is the gatekeeper.   I actually had a church member insist I bar another church member from entrance to the church; not on theological grounds but on purely personal ones.  I suppose it would be easier for me to refuse to offer him communion, but I would no more do one than the other.  Still, lay people are generally more keen on purity and holiness than the clergy generally are.  Interestingly, the class of people who are usually least interested in purity, and most interested in people, are the monks and nuns who devote their lives to God by devoting themselves to service.  I've always thought their devotion to God gave them the right perspective on matters of holiness.

I don't presume either the professor or the teacher of canon law speaks for Rome, so I don't assume their words carry any more weight than mine.  But it's always struck me as an issue of theology and hospitality (and I contend the two are virtually one, or should be; especially where matters of ecclesiology are concerned), not to mention ethics, about who has the standing to refuse anyone the grace of God's table.*  Jesus, after all, didn't check the baptismal records before he ate with sinners and tax collectors, and there's no record I know of that any of the twelve that night had been baptized and, as I say, one of them turned bad, but was allowed at the table anyway.

Maybe we're supposed to correct that?

(*I suppose someone does if it's the church's table.  Which it is, actually; Protestant or RC, the table is offered by the church in the name of God.  Who, then, do they offer it to?)

It's the viscera, stupid.

Remington 750 semiautomatic hunting rifle. Remington's marketing material promises "super-fast cycling.... Rapid follow-ups are its specialty, but famed Remington one-shot accuracy comes standard."

I have First Amendment rights to speak freely.  Except if I do, I might well lose my job.  If I put a bumper sticker on my car supporting a political candidate or an issue of public concern, my boss might retaliate and I'd end up fired.  Sure, I could sue, but would that get me my job back?  And when?  Safer if I keep my mouth shut, or discuss the politics that is acceptable in my workplace.

Same with freedom to assemble:  sure, I have it, and I can use it to protest.  If I have time after work and personal chores, errands, etc.  And if I'm even paying attention.

Freedom of religion?  Yeah, I can go to church or not, as I choose.  Wudaboutit?

Freedom from unlawful search and seizure?  That's never happened to me or to anyone I know.  Besides, I got nuthin' to hide.  Same with the freedom not to incriminate myself by my own testimony.  I ain't no criminal.

The "freedom" of the 2nd amendment pretty much boils down to this:  it's the only one you can "activate" by maintaining possession of something.  Maybe I see the gun as a fetish object.  Maybe I think people are nuts who claim there are boats in the Port of Houston full of ammunition which the Federal government won't let unload, in order to control or even raise the price of ammunition (I've actually heard this conspiracy theory).  Maybe I don't understand the passion to own a gun, because I don't share it and don't want to; especially where 4 year olds might be present.

But when I think about it in terms of "Constitutional rights," it suddenly becomes clear to me this is the one right that can remain inviolate:  that has nothing to do with what church you do or don't attend; that has nothing to do with what your boss or your friends think about politics; that has nothing to do with assembly and petition and protest that you don't have time for or aren't even interested in.  And it has nothing to do with keeping the criminal investigative arm of the government on a short leash where your privacy is concerned.  It's much, much simpler than any of those.

It's about an object, and your simple, native, unalienable right to possess it.  There isn't much you can possess without challenge:  cars and homes take loans and maintenance and constant supplies of fuel or water to make them useful.  Clothes wear out.  Guns last. You buy it, it's yours.  They can become family treasures.  They abide.

I don't have to sue my boss to keep my guns.  I don't have to go anywhere once a week to keep my guns.  I don't have to assemble, vote, or worry about the police unlawfully searching my home, to keep my guns.  Well, unless they're going to decide to take my guns, by limiting my "right."

But the Constitution says nobody can take 'em away from you.  That's all I know, and that's all I need to know.

Whether it actually says that or not is beside the point.  It's the one point where the Constitution meets the daily life of Joe Sixpack, of Joe Ordinary, of Joe Average Workin' Guy.

And that's why it's so important; not why it should be, but simply why it is.

Still not enough reason to kowtow to the gun nuts, of course.  But I think I see where the lines are drawn; at least between me and the guys who believe in black helicopters and government conspiracies to deny them access to ammunition.

"As you know, we once were told 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' "

Had NPR run this on April 1, I'd have sworn it was a joke.

But the distinction between justice and vengeance is false. A call for justice is always a cry for revenge. By placing their faith in the law, those who justifiably wish to see wrongdoers punished are not disavowing vengeance. If anything, they are seeking to be avenged by the law. No matter what they say, victims aren't choosing justice over vengeance; they are merely capitulating to a cultural taboo, knowing that the protocol in polite society is to repudiate revenge. But make no mistake: When it comes to the visceral experience of being a victim, revenge and justice are one and the same.

And everyone should feel similarly. After all, there is no justice unless victims feel avenged, when they believe that a wrong has been righted and honor restored. And revenge is never just if it is disproportionately delivered—if the retaliation exceeds what is justly deserved, measure for measure. Indeed, vengeance is not irrational (the common knock on revenge)—it's healthy and entirely human. Insisting that justice will suffice when revenge is what victims really want is both intellectually dishonest and factually untrue. Besides, in modern societies where vigilantism is disallowed, we all on some level reasonably believe that it is only by leveraging the law—and having the legal system serve as our proxy—that vengeance can be actually achieved.

An argument based on howlers like this:

For much of human history, the resolution of disputes was a private matter. States were not yet in the business of maintaining legal systems or, for that matter, punishing wrongdoers for crimes committed against another. Law and order was enforced at the most local of levels. Governments became involved—essentially taking a monopoly on vengeance—only during the Enlightenment, when the social contract obligated citizens to surrender to, and faithfully accept, the rule of law.

Or appeals to authority like this:

The philosopher Robert C. Solomon has pointed out that "vengeance is the original meaning of justice. The word 'justice' in the Old Testament and in Homer virtually always refers to revenge.

 I know the popular opinion of the Hebrew Scriptures is that they are soaked in blood, but honestly, the justice demanded by the prophets is really just a call for vengeance?  How ignorant can you be?

And the parts of human history that contradict this sweeping thesis?  On NPR today, Rosenbaum brushed them aside:

CONAN: Here's an email from Anne in Palo Alto: Njal's Saga - I hope I'm not mispronouncing that too badly - from medieval Icelandic traces the change from blood feuds to a centralized, we would call it a government system of adjudicating wrongs after people realized that each time a person was killed, that prompted a revenge killing, which prompted another revenge killing, ad infinitum.

ROSENBAUM: I just - I know we say this. I know you cited two writers on this subject. We would not be a species if every single nation on Earth for millennia had done nothing other than continued a tit-for-tat until they wiped each other out.

CONAN: Nobody said until they wiped each other out. The various clans and tribes may have revenge killings that make their death totals from violence a great deal higher than our death total from violence is now. But that doesn't mean they wipe each other out.

ROSENBAUM: What means is they can't live their lives. They can't go outside. Everybody is held prisoner because my cousin committed a crime and therefore, I'm the next one in line. I mean, even, you know, there have been stories, of course, of tribes that have been engaged in blood feuds and honor killings that have no end. But it's a nasty business, and that's why most nations, most tribes, manage to be able to settle their scores privately and do so with finality.

CONAN: Most nations these days don't have the death penalty.

ROSENBAUM: That's true. But most people around the world live in nations that do have the death penalty. Of course, that's the United States, China and India, and most people around the world support the death penalty.

Need I point out that when one reference to one work of literature can puncture your argument, you don't have a very strong argument?  And what is this appeal to the majority except an ad populum argument?  This guy is a law professor?  I hope he never represents me on an appeal.

Wiki tells me Njal's Saga describes events taking place in 960 to 1020.  Beowulf, written down finally about the same time, describes events centuries earlier than that, and already one can detect in the poet's telling a wish for a society that didn't live on reprisals.  Rosenbaum argues that vengeance achieved a natural balance in tribal societies.  I suppose greed would, too, if we simply allowed it to run unchecked.

Besides, I'm quite certain the roots of criminal law, of the king prosecuting crimes against his subjects as a crime against the crown (the basis for the State in America bringing criminal charges against individuals) dates back to the Medieval period, which ended about 2 centuries before the Enlightenment began.  I'm sure the Enlightenment added more order to this process, but ancient concepts of justice as vengeance weren't swept away with the 17th century, and any argument that contends social order went to hell with the establishment of reason the Enlightenment represents is both ignorant of the history of 17th century Europe, and of the history of human reason.

How can you be a professor of law and reach such mindless and ignorant conclusions as:  "A call for justice is always a cry for revenge"?  The statement is absolutely indefensible.  It wouldn't pass muster in a freshman philosophy course touching on the concept of jurisprudence.

These things that pass for knowledge I don't understand.....

On the passing of Margaret Thatcher

Let us now praise famous men,
the fathers of our people in their generations;
to them the Lord assigned great glory,
his majestic greatness from of old.
Some held sway over kingdoms
and gained renown for their might.
Others were far-seeing counsellors
who spoke out with prophetic power.
Some guided the people by their deliberations
and by their knowledge of the law,
giving instruction from their fund of wisdom.
...
All those won glory in their own generation
and were the pride of their times.
Some there are who have left behind them a name
to be commemorated in story.
...
Their prosperity is handed on to their descendants,
their inheritance to future generations.
Through them their children are within the covenant--
the whole race of their descendants.

Ecclesiasticus 44:1-4, 7, 11-12, REB

Woe to him who says,
"I shall build myself a spacious palace
with airy roof chambers and
windows set in it.
It will be paneled with cedar
and painted with vermilion."
Though your cedar is so splendid,
does that prove you a king?
Think of your father: he ate and drank,
dealt justly and fairly; all went well with him.
He upheld the cause of the lowly and poor;
then all was well.
Did not this show he knew me? says the Lord.
But your eyes and your heart are set on naught but gain, set only on the innocent blood you can shed,
on the cruel acts of tyranny you perpetrate.

Jeremiah 22: 14-17 (REB)

 "They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours."

Margaret Thatcher

One of these things is not like the others.....

Every Man His Own Action Hero

There is no excuse for gunning a man down, in cold blood or otherwise.  I want to start there so my comments are very clear.  Mike McClelland did not deserve to die, and nothing he did or said or thought justifies his murder.

That said, what was he thinking?  That he was the hero of his own action movie?

Rural Texas prides itself as a place where people can take care of themselves, many are not only armed but well armed. And McLelland was a man among them. Joining the Army after graduating from the University of Texas, he held a major's rank in the reserves and served as recently as the Persian Gulf War. After his assistant was ambushed in January, he warned potential assailants that in him, they faced a former military officer who was now armed and ready.

The only thing he wasn't ready for, was somebody walking up to his front door.

This killing is almost out of an action movie.  You know, the one that opens on a quiet American street at a normal American house where somebody walks up to a random door and when the occupants answer, the guy on the door step pulls out an assault weapon and starts blazing away, murdering everybody in the house.

And then the heroes show up.  Because in the movies, the heroes never answer a door and get gunned down.  The hero is certainly never shot in his pajamas.  Even when the heroes run through a hail of bullets, the bullets either bounce at their feet (see!  real gunfire!) or splatter into every object around them but, mysteriously, never strike them, even if all they have for protection is a thin sheet of plywood.

This happens because heroes are always "armed and ready," and that protects them.  But even when it doesn't, the bad guys can't just gun down the heroes in their bathrobes at their front doors, because, dude, it doesn't work that way.

I mention this not to condemn Mike McClelland, but to condemn the attitude he had and so many people have today:  a conviction in their own invincibility, because they "know how to handle guns."  And because they own guns.  Usually, a lot of guns.

Sadly, that didn't do Mike McClelland any good at all.

Mike McClelland should be alive today.  So should his wife.  That this could happen to them is frightening, and law enforcement should do all it can, arm itself as much as it needs to, to apprehend the killer or killers behind this crime.  But any police officer who is stupid enough to think the gun he or she carries is going to protect him or her against the gun the killer carries, should do himself or herself a favor, and sit this one out.  And if the police don't think they can be that stupid, why are the rest of us supposed to think we can?

This is not an action movie, and an arsenal of guns won't protect you.  If it didn't protect Mike McClelland, it won't protect anybody.  It's past time we figured that out.  Law enforcement will bring about justice.  Heavily armed citizens won't do anything except provide weapons and ammunition to people who should have access to neither.

Take, eat, this cinnamon roll is my...uh...this hot chocolate is my....wait a minute....

Here's what we know about eucharist/communion/The Lord's Supper (in Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions; I will not speak of the Orthodox traditions, as I don't know them):

The liquid served must be wine; because Jesus (and Paul) said so.  Alternatively, it can be grape juice, because that's almost wine; close enough for government work, anyway.  But no rice wine, elderberry wine, dandelion wine; only wine or juice from grapes is permitted.

The wine must be red, because, well,  "This is my blood."  So white wine is right out!

The bread must be bread, because, again, Jesus (and Paul) said so.  Unleavened is okay, because...er, Passover.  Except there's no indication the Last Supper was a Seder meal, and in fact the Seder probably showed up after 70 C.E. and the rise of rabbinic Judaism (I'm guessing here, to be honest), and so crackers are okay, or almost anything made from wheat that can be considered "bread."  Leavened bread is actually acceptable, too.  And preferably white (dunno why; but I've never seen anybody serve whole wheat, or rye, or pumpernickel....).

And we know this because....

Well, actually because "we've always done it this way;" that's why.  Now, there's nothing wrong with this state of things; and it is certainly "holy" to some people.  That is, you cannot defile the eucharist/communion/Lord's Supper with elements that are not approved for consumption at the table/altar/rail/in the pews by the blessed hand of How We've Always Done It.  If you begin to suspect some pastoral cynicism, it is because every congregation has some practice/routine/ritual custom which they have "always done," and which is holier and more inviolate than the most central tenets of Christian doctrine or the most hallowed teachings of the Sermon on the Mount.

But I digress.....

We know these things are holy and right and true because we have always known them to be so.  We know these things because this is one of the few sacraments all Christian (RC and Protestant) agree are actually sacred (i.e., sacramental).  We also know these elements are symbolic; or transcendent; or transubstantiated.  Well, there, you see, the consensus begins to break down.  We don't even agree that the liquid has to be wine.  At best we agree it must be derived from grapes; and that the solid portion be derived from wheat; but definitely not a sweet bread.  Not even brioche; or a madeline.  And certainly not a cinnamon roll!

If you're memory goes back far enough, you might begin to suspect where I'm going with this:

I announced a "Love Feast," something I understand is a practice of the Moravian church. I offered hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls on Sunday morning, as a "sort of" eucharist. (I was not ordained then, and my advisors were at great pains to be reassured I would not call this either a "meal" or "Communion," even though I said a communion prayer that morning. This may seem reasonable to someone in an episcopal tradition, such as the RC or the Anglian Communion, but in the loose UCC "traditions," this struck me as almost laughable. It still does.)

(Yes, my blog has been around long enough I can just recycle myself.  Pretty much what I do anyway, but now I can use links!)    I could not, when I served that "meal," call it a eucharist.  Which is really funny, because Paul called it "eucharisto" not to invent a new word, but to use a (then) familiar one.  Today, if it wasn't already a holiday and so a proper noun, we would call it "thanksgiving."  His original interest in it, if his letter to the Corinthians is any guide (and it has been for us for nearly 2000 years) was in equality and egalitarianism, not in a severe definition of the elements:

In giving you these instructions I come to something I cannot commend:  your meetings tend to do more harm than good.  To begin with, I am told that when you meet as a congregation you fall into sharply divided groups....The result is that when you meet as a congregation, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat; when it comes to eating, each of you takes his own supper, one goes hungry and another has too much to drink....Can I commend you on this point, certainly not? (1 Corinthians 11:  17-18a, 20, 22b, REB)

 What then follows are the famous words of institution in which Paul mentions "bread" and "wine" (or "the cup", and again depending on the translation)  9 times in the space of 6 verses.  We can understand, in other words, how the emphasis came to fall on those two elements.

Unfortunately, the emphasis never fell on the verses I quoted, because it wasn't that long ago that churches still divided themselves on Sunday mornings, men on one side, women and children on the other.  And before that they kicked out everybody who wasn't baptized before the eucharist could commence.  And while I grew up expected to attend worship as soon as I was a toddler, it's not unusual today for children to leave worship as soon (and publicly) as possible, the better to maintain order and discipline.  I was never happy with that, but I can tell you it is now "the way we've always done things," and it's not a liturgical hill that you, as a pastor, want to die on.

What was also lost in transition and translation was the idea of the eucharisto as a meal rather than as a set of elements.  There isn't much evidence that Paul instituted the service as we know it, with the elements as we understand them, in every one of his churches.  In fact, the evidence from this passage is that whatever was edible was brought, and Paul's complaint was, it wasn't being shared!  Of course now the church is no longer home (as Paul's churches literally were) and we expect the church to play host and offer, in good hospitality, the refreshments.  Er, excuse me...the elements.

You see, Paul's original emphasis was on the breakdown of social barriers, so that all would be one in Christ; neither male nor female (with the hierarchy that implied), neither slave nor free (no person the possession or possessor), and neither adult nor child (with the power differential that, too, implied).  I still remember one of the best things about church when I was 13, was that I got to be treated like an adult.  No where else in the world did I enjoy that privilege, even if it was, realistically, a limited one.

But we set the breakdown of social barriers aside, too, and insisted the most important part of the meal was the composition of the elements.  I don't bring that up to complain about it, just to point it out.  We drew boundaries and allowed a very narrow set of comestibles to be included in the Venn diagrams of what is "in" and what is "out," of what is part of the "set" and what isn't.  Grape juice was an acceptable non-alcoholic substitute for wine because it was still grape juice; but no other substitute was allowed.  Saltine crackers were acceptable as "Unleavened bread," but cinnamon rolls were right out!

Well, almost.....

The cinnamon rolls I served for the first time on that Christmas morning established a true eucharisto, the first one I've ever experienced (and sadly, one of the last).  There was joy in that room, in a room where there should have been joy far more often (and yes, I'll take responsibility for that lacking the rest of the year).  It became a tradition which I hope they still carry on.  It's been years since I was there, and who can say.  My point was to refresh a dying sense of joy on one of the holy days of the Christian calendar.  And I've always thought it raised the question Jesus raised whenever someone in the gospels accused him of doing it wrong, of violating "We've always done it this way."

"Who do you think these rules are for?" he effectively asked.  Who, indeed?

It's only words

This, by the way, is fascinating.

Write the word "Jesus" on a piece of paper.  Now put that piece of paper on the ground and stomp on it.  Sacrilegious? Blasphemous?  An assault on religion?

Or an exercise in the power of symbolism?

"Jesus," after all, is merely the Anglicization of "Joshuah", based on the transliteration of the Greek

Ἰησοῦ

into Latin (Iesu).  And written on a piece of paper, it is just ink on paper; a series of squiggles that means no more than that set of Greek characters, unless you know how to read those characters.  If I wrote the name of "Jesus" in Chinese pictographs, would it be more or less sacrilegious to stomp on the piece of paper?  How about if I used the Greek characters?  When is this disturbing, and why?

Semiology is the study of signs, of signifiers.  It wasn't until I studied semiology that I even noticed that "sign" is a "signifier" (somehow the pronounced consonant in the latter covers, at least to me, the connection between the two ideas).  A "Sign" was always something on a roadway:  it told you to stop, or yield, or what that name of the business is.  To recognize a sign signifies, is to recognize something new; and it is to recognize the importance of symbol.

If I stand in the pulpit in my black Wesleyan robe, it signifies I am a preacher in the Reformed tradition.  (Well, it used to; now it just means I'm a pastor, whatever that signifies.).  If I wear an alb, it should signify my humility and connection with the working class; but if I wore blue jeans and a t-shirt and maybe some work boots into the pulpit, it would signify that connection far too clearly, and few congregations would welcome me.  Most would feel I was not showing them, or their pulpit, the proper respect.  Symbols do matter to us, even when we don't realize they are symbols.

Which is what makes this story so fascinating.  First, it comes from a textbook:

"This exercise is a bit sensitive, but really drives home the point that even though symbols are arbitrary, they take on very strong and emotional meanings. Have the students write the name JESUS in big letters on a piece of paper. Ask the students to stand up and put the paper on the floor in front of them with the name facing up. Ask the students to think about it for a moment. After a brief period of silence, instruct them to step on the paper. Most will hesitate. Ask why they can’t step on the paper. Discuss the importance of symbols in culture."

Now, of course, "stomp" is a charged word.  It is, itself, a signifier, and it signifies disrespect.  But even putting your foot on a piece of paper with a word on it can be disrespectful, so the signifier "stomp" relates the outrage of those passing on this story from this Florida college classroom.  And I've repeated the term here intentionally, because this story is all about outrage and where it comes from. Because the instructor in this case has been put on leave, having faced a number of death threats.   There are even allegations he threatened a student; allegations I find a bit unlikely, but I don't know the instructor, so who knows?    So what is the story here?  That a teacher went atheist-crazy and told his students to "Stomp out Jesus!"?  No.  The instructor was trying to get the students to consider the power of symbols.  He might have drawn a flag on the piece of paper; that would have been no less controversial. It would also raise the same question:  is the drawing of a flag the same thing as a flag?  Is the name "Jesus" the same thing as the central figure in Christianity?  Or, in the terms of semiology:  is the signifier also the signified?

What if you told the students, instead, that it was the name of a Mexican male?  Pronounce the word with the Spanish "J" instead of the English one?  Is that better?  Why, or why not?

My sympathies are with this instructor.  Teaching is hard enough without facing this kind of vitriol.  I won't link to all the hard-right web sites which have brought calumny down on this teacher.  The college, to its credit, is supporting the teacher:

“As with any academic lesson, the exercise was meant to encourage students to view issues from many perspectives, in direct relation with the course objectives,” said Noemi Marin, the university’s director of the school of communication and multimedia studies.

“While at times the topics discussed may be sensitive, a university environment is a venue for such dialogue and debate,” Marin added.

Of course, the takeaway from this story at that link, is this:

 The university did not explain why students were only instructed to write the name of Jesus – and not the name of Mohammed or another religious figure.

Even after quoting the language of the proposed assignment I provided above, the article writer insists on missing the point.  "Jesus" is a much more powerful symbol in American culture than "Mohammed."

The real question is, what does "Jesus" symbolize?  

Addendum:  I should point out that Sharia law insists you cannot defile the holy Koran in this way (the way described above).  Any Koran, just as any sheet of paper with "Jesus" on it can somehow become holy.  And the Governor of Florida (which is where I really sympathize with the poor teacher) thinks the laws of America (since he speaks as a public official, which means his words carry some weight of law behind them) mean a piece of paper with the letters "J-E-S-U-S" cannot be treated this way, either.

Just sayin'......

Hospitality, Powerlessness, and the Being of God

I don't base my life on mathematics.

Although I understand and acknowledge the importance of mathematics in the world, and even to understanding the nature of the world, I'm not mathematician nor Platonist enough to think that mathematics defines all that is worth knowing in the world, such as my friendships, my family, my wife, my daughter; or myself.

I understand that mathematics is an intellectually rigorous enterprise which requires capabilities I don't have and a mental discipline I have never been able to acquire.  I understand mathematics is capable of explaining many important things and that it is enormously useful, and that what little use I can make of it with arithmetic (I have something of a calculator in my brain; mostly a lot of memorized facts about simple arithmetical equations) is as far as my abilities will ever go.  What I don't do, is make those limitations the basis for a critique of mathematics as a study, except insofar as some mathematician tries to go the Platonic route with me, and argue that mathematics is the true language of reality, or even a reflection of the eternal forms.  Because that's crossing over into philosophy, and there I yield easily to no one.

Which is not the same thing as saying I am a philosopher, or wise in the ways of philosophy.  It's not the same thing as saying I"m a theologian, either, although I'm more of one than I'll ever be a mathematician.

What prompts this reflection is this post at Wounded Bird; and the underlying assumption that, in matters religious, we must all be theologians, or at least acknowledge the superiority of theology, or we must simply be believers, and fall back on our Romantic emotional sense of what is true, because it is grounded in our experience or our childhood or just our "self."  And even to adopt such language is, again, to adopt the language of philosophy; yet how else are we to express our thoughts, and how else are we to explain our understanding, limited though it may ever be, of God?

Negative theology is one such recognition of the limitation.  Negative theology begins with that God is not, because vast though that is, it is more easily understood by human reason than the true nature of God (which is the true subject of theology).  And there's the rub already:  what is the true subject of theology? Julian of Norwich wrote theology, even though it was not recognized as such in the 13th century (nor much today; my categorization is my own, thank you very much).  Kathleen Norris wrote three books of theology, though she famously eschewed the field and all associated with it.  Until the Enlightenment, theology as the mother of the sciences and the foundation of reason in Europe.  It was theology that inspired the preservation of Plato, and the recovery of Aristotle, truly a gift of the Muslims to the Christians.  It was, argued Thomas Cahill, theology (and the Irish) which saved civilization.  Perhaps we should stop here and first define our terms.

Theology is, first, not an Hebraic legacy, but a Greek one.  It arose, not from the teachings of Christ, nor even from the letters of Paul, but from the early church leaders steeped in Greek forms of reason (there are many valid forms of reason; the Greek, though foundational to Western culture, is only one among many).  It arose almost purely, as the later phrase would have it, as "faith seeking understanding."  But it is important to note that "understanding" was sought within the Greek terms of reference, according to fundamentally Greek ideas of reason.  There are, we must understand, other frames of reference available to humankind.

Even the Romans, as influenced by the Greeks as they were, did not wholly fall in line with Greek reasoning.  They had their own views of reality and validity.  The Greek forms are as natural to us as breathing, and even when they don't take the most rigorous forms, like formal logic (which is so akin to modern mathematics), we all, in Western culture,  fundamentally reason as the Greeks taught us to.  Does this mean we are all Greeks, or even all logicians?  Of course not; but we function from reasoning that can easily lead us to Greek logic, if we chose to follow it that far and that studiously.

And the result would be no more certainty than we enjoy without pursuing logic to its formal conclusions.  One of the first rules of formal logic, in fact, is that it doesn't establish truth.  It establishes valid conclusions drawn from the proper application of a formal system of reasoning, but the truth of the conclusion is dependent upon the information brought to the formal system.  Garbage in, garbage out, and the formal system of logic has no function which guarantees garbage is not fed in.  The classic syllogism "All humans are mortal, Socrates is human, therefore Socrates is mortal," is a valid logical conclusion.  But it doesn't establish the existence of Socrates, or the truth that all humans are mortal.

Systems will not do the work for you.  To put it bluntly:  systems will not save you.

Martin Luther's great theological insight was that he was saved by grace, not by faith.  But this insight was not the result of rigorous theological effort; it was much more a cri de coeur, a desperate rejection of the damnation that his studies of Augustine had lead him to fear.  Scholars will tell you Melancthon was Luther's theologian; but outside of scholars, who remembers Melanchthon today?  Luther not only gave us his fundamental idea, one almost universally accepted now; but he also gave us the concept of negative theology.  He understood, in other words, the limits of theology; and he even took advantage of them.

There are, you see, different types of "theology," and some of the most important ideas of theology don't come from expert theologians.  Luther needed Melanchthon, but Melanchthon needed Luther, too.   Any discussion of the nature of God is theology, whether the discussion is coming from Dom Crossan or from Pat Robertson.  The importance of theology has always been as a support to faith; never as a replacement for it.  The idea that theology should, indeed must, replace faith is actually an artifact of the Enlightenment and, like the myth of medieval church men obsessed with angels and pinheads, actually a product of the critique of faith, not of its faithful examination.

I think it safe to say that at some point around the Enlightenment faith and reason were fully separated, although they had never been as one in Christian theology.  Reason was, until the Enlightenment (broadly speaking) a gift of God.  It was reasoning that Augustine employed in his own cri de coeur, his Confessions.  Reason is again paramount for Aquinas, one of the finest reasoning minds to ever record his thoughts.  Both men are instructive here: Augustine's heart famously led him to faith; it was his reason that puzzled out the explanations his Greek-influenced culture demanded, and much of that reasoning was a response to competing theologies which we now mostly remember, if at all, as heresies.  But Augustine's reasoning (along with others) was aimed at supporting faith, not at supplanting it.  The arguments over the heresies was an argument over how to understand the proper parameters of faithfulness as Christians, arguments no different from those Paul had with his churches in Galatia or Corinth or even the church in Rome.  Paul did not establish those churches on reasons alone, but neither could reason fail to be a part of his discussion of the new faith of Christians.  Aquinas, even more than Augustine, applied rigorous reasoning to bring the then newly-discovered insights of Aristotle into what was an already well established theological framework.  And yet, the end result of all Aquinas' work, work that scholars today spend a lifetime studying and still say they do not fully grasp?  He had a vision, after which, he said, all his work was as straw; and he never wrote another word.

The visions of Julian of Norwich were, arguably, beyond reason.  They certainly weren't the end result of reasoning; yet she spent her anchorite revising and revisiting those visions and making sense of them both through her experience and her faith, and through her reason.  She did not reason as Aquinas did, nor even as Augustine did; but is she any less a theologian for that?  Her vision of Christ as Mother preserve a theological insight that might otherwise be lost to Christian thinking, and we are all the richer for it.  It isn't, of course, a conclusive vision, and it provokes all manner of response, even today.  Some emphasize it, some try to explain it away, none make it a pillar of their theological arguments.  But it is a statement about the nature of God; and in line with Luther's negative theology, that we can only truly say what God is not, we need to be careful to say God cannot be Mother as well as Father; not in our understanding, which will always have to explain God or experience God in the frame of reference we already have.

There are, as I say, various theologies:  there is theology as the umbrella term for Christian reasoning about God, and then there is theology, the specific field concerned with the nature of God, as opposed to Christology, which is concerned with the nature of the Christ; and pneumatology, the study of the nature of the Holy Spirit; not to mention ecclesiology, and soteriology, and systematic theology, and the theology of worship.

You get the idea.

Must we be mathematicians who understand geometry both Euclidean and non-Euclidean, and elementary analysis, and calculus, in order to speak of arithmetic at all, or how we understand the workings of the world in terms of quantum mechanics?  I cannot say I am a physicist, but I can understand some of the ideas of modern physics without being ashamed of my inability to follow the mathematics that underpins them.  Neither do I need to understand Christology as Jan Sorbino does, nor theology as Gustavo Gutierrez does, in order to grasp the idea of the preferential option for the poor, or to consider the virtues of liberation theology.  Perhaps I do if I want to discuss the matter with the Pope Emeritus; but if I want to practice the preferential option for the poor as my Christian duty?  I only need a certain understanding of the teachings of the Gospels.  That understanding will be a theological one; but need it be a formal, even a systematic, theological one?  Only if I wish it to be so.  Will that understanding answer all my questions, clear all doubts, confirm all beliefs?  Of course not; nothing will.  Life is messy.  We reason from life to conclusions; never from conclusions to life.

Theology is what we engage in when we talk about God, whether it is to understand our own thoughts about how to be a Christian, or whether it is trying to explain the function and necessity of "natural law".  Theology originated as an endeavour of people trained in Greek reason to speak of God in terms of that reasoning, usually as a way of distinguishing one set of ideas (acceptable) from another (heresies).  That kind of theological effort is apologetics, although it is more and more, and especially since the Enlightenment, seen as the sole purpose of theology.  There are, of course, other uses; and they can be as esoteric as Tillich's Systematic Theology or as deliberative as Barth's Dogmatics, or as narrow as a text I picked up in seminary about the theology of worship.  But it can also be a hymn, a Celtic prayer, a meditation by a poet, a record of a mystical experience, the reason why you react to a psalm or a sermon.  Theology is perhaps even better defined by what it isn't, than by what it is.

And what it primarily isn't is an academic exercise carried out solely by learned practitioners with knowledge and abilities far beyond those of mortal men and women, with insights too deep for untrained minds to plumb and understandings too vast for common people to follow.

The underlying post behind that post at Wounded Bird laments that theology does not lead to certainty; but that, I would argue, is the proper way of faith.  Theology, or more properly scriptural studies in seminary, taught me that the parables of Christ, far from being visions of heaven in an earthly guise, are disturbing pictures of a world turned inside out by the presence of God, a world in which certainty is the failure, uncertainty the hope of faith.  At some point perhaps that leads me to Luther's negative theology; to the idea that I can only know what God is not, based on the revelation in Scripture and through the teachings of my church (we are long past the days of "The" Church).  It is at least better than the certainty that I know what cannot be known.  Or, more accurately, that I need to know what cannot be known.