For no reason other than I can

Let me just say I'm ready to be an agnostic on the question of whether or not Bush & Co. should be prosecuted for various crimes and violations of law.

Even Daniel Schorr thinks something should be done, for the very reason that an inquiry, at least, would set the boundaries of what is acceptable practice by a President. Let me stop right there, because that is the key issue. A guest on Pacifica Radio this week, during the Senate confirmation hearings for Eric Holder, explain the "Office of Legal Counsel" in the White House, the office from which John Yoo issued his infamous legal memos.

The guest pointed out that, rather eerily like Richard Nixon said, when the President does something, it's legal. And it's legal because the Office of Legal Counsel advises the President on what is, and is not, legal (which makes the Office both very powerful and very important when you seek good governance rather than just governmental power). The only check on this establishment of what's legal is the courts. If the President should be taken to court because of his actions (difficult to do for a number of reasons), and lose (think Hamdan v. Rumsfeld), only then is the power of the President limited. Absent that extraordinary situation, basically, it's true: if the President does it, it'e legal.

Frankly, it's the only way the system can work. It depends a great deal on the good will of the President, and the restraint of the Office of Legal Counsel. Now, let's turn our attention to proposals for prosecutions, keeping in mind our sympathies for Daniel Schorr's position.

Obama is so far ambiguous about his plans, which put Paul Krugman in a righteous lather. Krugman argues, quite persuasively, that:

...[I]f we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years — and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any consequences if they abuse their power.

Which sounds pretty reasonable, until you consider that Prof. Krugman is an economist, not a lawyer; and he imagines a legal scenario not that far removed from the "ticking bomb" scenario beloved of torture apologists like Sen. John Cornyn and aficionados of "24". I.e., it's a fictional scenario where you get to write the ending. As Woody Allen said in "Annie Hall": "Don't you wish real life was like this?"

In the "ticking bomb" scenario, you know the torture will cause the terrorist to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Unfortunately, of course, it doesn't work that way in real life. In real life, the torture victim tends to tell you whatever you want to hear, and by the time you find out he was lying, it's too late, and not only have you wasted your time on a useless and indeed damaging interrogation technique (interrogators insist gaining the trust of the prisoner is far more productive than torturing them), but you've sold your soul for a mess of pottage. And in all ways possible, you have failed those you were supposed to protect. So it's a losing proposition that you insist will work only because you insist you can write the outcome; but, of course, you can't.

Enter Alan Dershowitz, a man who has supported torture, so I'm not inclined to accept his arguments at face value. But Mr. Dershowitz is also a lawyer and, alas, he has a point:

There is almost no possibility that such prosecutions could succeed. A fairly selected jury would almost certainly acquit. The defendant would simply present the jury with the classified intelligence that demonstrated the extraordinary threats facing the United States. If the government refused to declassify these threat assessments, the defendant would have a strong case for dismissing the charges against him, because he was being denied his right to present relevant evidence under the Sixth Amendment. Most jurors would be extremely sympathetic to the Jack Bauer, "Do whatever it takes to stop terrorism" argument.

No one can predict the future, or how a jury would rule in a given case. Who could foresee the first O.J. Simpson murder trial verdict? I think Dershowitz raises an excellent legal point: the defense could demand classified documents which, if it couldn't get them, would present a 6th Amendment defense. End of trial, and what have you accomplished?

Or there is a trial, which always introduces the risk the jury will vote to acquit, and not only have you not accomplished your goal, you've set almost in stone, certainly by your own actions, a vindication of that which you sought to declare most foul and unclean. This won't be, after all, a replay of the Nuremberg trials, where the prosecution really held all the cards and the defendants were already seen as the worst criminals imaginable, and evidence against them could only shock the conscience of the entire world. This won't even be South Africa, where truth and reconciliation depended on coming clean about hideous crimes of violence and racism, and where the alternative was to be turned over to a legal system where people would happily convict you, if only as a matter of vengeance (whether this was true or not, it was most certainly the fear of many who had the chance to go before the Commission, or face the courtroom). In short, this will not be a trial about the torture of your fellow citizens, but of foreigners who wanted to kill your fellow citizens.

Still feeling like you are sure the outcome would be what you wanted? We could well end end up with a situation worse than we have now. As Dershowitz says:

A defendant in such a case would also invoke Thomas Jefferson who strongly favored breaking the law in extreme cases of national security, Abraham Lincoln, who repeatedly broke the law, and Franklin Roosevelt, who not only broke the law but ordered the racist detention of more than a hundred thousand Japanese-Americans.

An acquittal in such a case would be seen by many as a vindication of the Bush policies, which is certainly not something those who advocate prosecution would welcome. So be careful what you ask for; you may get it.

Would that defense guarantee an acquittal? No; nothing can do that. But it would make a conviction highly unlikely, and even if one was obtained, the defense would make the conviction a very muddied success, indeed.

So as we imagine a prosecution would vindicate all of our worst suspicions and deepest convictions about the outgoing Administration, stop and consider that we don't get to write the ending to this story, and the world doesn't always see things precisely the way we do.

Given that, what do we demand of the new Administration, with regard to the old Administration, now?

Does this mean we have to be nice to Rick Warren?

More like this please:

The Rev. Rick Warren, the conservative evangelical minister who will deliver the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration, has extended an olive branch to Bishop V. Gene Robinson.

Robinson, an openly gay Episcopal bishop, had reacted angrily to the selection of Warren, who opposes gay marriage, calling it a "slap in the face." But then Robinson was selected this week to give the invocation at the inaugural opening ceremony at the Sunday afternoon concert on the Mall.

Today, Warren issued a statement praising Obama for selecting Robinson, saying the president-elect "has again demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground. I applaud his desire to be the president of every citizen."

I know left blogistan (and probably right, as well) were upset (if only mildly) that Obama had dinner with George Will and Bill Kristol and David Brooks and sundry others, last night. Rachel Maddow was still fuming tonight with +Gene Bishop over Obama's selection of Rick Warren.

But this is something we haven't seen in a public official in so long, we've forgotten what it looks like: the strength of confidence, of belief in people and in ideas, the deep faith that is sure inviting diversity does not diminish the group, but enhances it.

The argument against Rick Warren even giving the invocation always came down to: in the name of tolerance, we must be intolerant of the intolerant. The Christian teaching, of course, is just the opposite. Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you. What credit is it to you to be kind to those who are kind to you? I tell you, love your enemies.

I needn't tell you who said that last line. And no, Obama is not "loving his enemies" by meeting with them, or inviting them to be with him. But neither is he practicing acceptable intolerance by refusing to tolerate those who will not tolerate all of us. And every once in awhile, that kind of practice even has a visibly good effect.

Score one for those who light candles, and don't just curse the darkness.

Lookin' for love in all the wrong places...

What's interesting here is not only, as Pastor Dan says, that these guys are nuts, but that they think this "ritual" they have invented, will have power.

It seems that Rob Schenck of Faith and Action and Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition took it upon themselves last week to bless the Capitol passageway through which Barack Obama will make his way to be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. Turned back by Capitol police, they happened upon Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), who shepherded them to the place. There, as you can see, amidst the praying for the president-to-be and his family, Schenck anoints the door posts with holy oil from the Holy Land, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

What's up with this? In the video, Schenck declares that he is consecrating the passageway "as they did the furnishings of the Tabernacle and the Temple to the use of God and to His will and to His Word."

This reminds me of "Crisco" John Ashcroft anointing himself when he was Missouri's governor and Senator, as if that practice had any purpose other than to make him feel special. This is a curious impulse among evangelicals, one as far removed from the roots of Reformed (read "Calvin's Institutes") theology as one can go. It was the Reformers, after all, who removed the figure from the crucifix, concerned, in line with the Hebrew prophets, that any representation of God would lead to idolatry. Evangelical practice was once tied closely to Reformed theology, and where the Roman Catholic church provided the individual believer with the necessary anchor to avoid selfishness and self-reflection ("navel gazing," as we used to say in my feckless youth), Reformed theology replaced that church centered sense of salvation with a personal relationship to God directly. But to avoid the obvious abuses such a self centered theology could have, the theology didn't allow any focus on the self because you were part of, and responsible to, a believing community. Thus do you have such a splintering of Protestantism over the centuries, with each community zealously proclaiming its message and creating identities for its adherents.

Where ritual and liturgical practices created such identities for Roman Catholics and Anglicans, doctrinal distinctions created the identities for other Protestants. So Presbyterians could distinquish themselves from Baptists, who could distinguish themselves from Methodists, who could distinguish themselves from Congregationalists, and so on. Mostly the distinction was on issues of polity, less so on issues of doctrine, although the smallest distinctions in theology would be used to create the largest possible divisions. Still, one thing all Reformed theologies agreed on, and this is what kept them clearly demarcated from the Lutheran branch of Protestantism, was that most ritual practices were unnecessary at best, heathenish superstition at worst. *

And so now evangelicals are mining the Hebrew scriptures for anointing rituals in their homes, and blessing rituals in public places. How do we know they are still evangelicals? Because they don't acknowledge the authority, or the necessity of authority from, a larger ecclesial body. The determination by the individual of the correctness of the act is sufficient unto the task. Which is where things get really weird.

Evangelicals seem to be turning proto-Catholic, seeking meaning and purpose (and power!) in rituals their spiritual ancestors abandoned as the spawn of the Whore of Babylon. But this isn't the triumph of Rome; rather, we seem to be in Gramsci's interregnum, in which a great variety of morbid symptoms appear; and this is one of them. The culture at large having abandoned all but the forms of religious belief (see, e.g., Joel Osteen; and this abandonment and fractioning itself is an inevitable result of Protestantism, although Osteen isn't; well, not necessarily), Protestants are more and more left with either creating their own cultures, or trying desperately to claim control of the culture at large. The latter came a cropper with the descent of George Bush (who never had any interest in the religious except as a voting bloc he could manipulate). The power broker pastors, like Ted Haggard, are done. James Dobson is relegated to his radio show again. Obama is friendly with Rick Warren but also +Gene Robinson and Sharon Watkins. But those are only surface indications; this issue goes much deeper than who is the favored pastor of the power elite today.

The issue is a point I've made before: Protestantism relied on the culture to give it meaning and purpose, and now that the culture no longer does that (perhaps Protestantism succeeded too well, instilling the work ethic and leading to industrialization, which brings us to the market worship of today?), Protestantism is beginning to lose its form, and very possibly, its way. One reason I'm marginally sympathetic to the aims of a Marc Driscoll is that I understand where his critique of at least one strain of Protestantism comes from (though I disagree completely with his solution). There is a serious cultural clash between the people Driscoll knows and appeals to, and the Protestantism presented by most mainline churches or even non-denominational mega-churches (quick: name another "mega-church" that intentionally and relentlessly reaches out to the economically or socially marginalized people Driscoll appeals to.) The serious cultural desire to differentiate Reformed practice from Roman Catholic practice is almost entirely vestigial now (and very likely largely American, to boot). Without that opposition, it's not really surprising to see evangelicals turning to ritual to try to give their teachings meaning. Again, Driscoll picks up on the importance of opposition inherent even in the title "Protestant", though methinks he doth protest against the wrong group. But "Protestant" originally meant "in protest" against the dominant Roman Catholic church. Q: "What are you protesting?" A: "Whaddya got?" When you can't keep that up, you gotta find some other reason to believe. Without Roman Catholics to protest against, and without a culture that clearly supports the benefits of Protestantism, that in fact seems to be suffering from a surfeit of cultural Protestantism, the interregnum interposes, and the question arises: "Whither Protestantism?"

The mega-churches haven't really brought the Second Reformation some might have expected, or even the third "Great Awakening." What went wrong? Well, perhaps mega-churches aped too much the culture that created it. Which is to say, perhaps it simply didn't create enough of an alternative vision for the people; perhaps it didn't translate abstract Christian doctrines into concrete terms. "Blessing," for example, is a common idea among evangelicals. Outside the "prosperity gospel" that teaches a new house and new care are "blessings," however, the idea of "blessing" is rather unclear. The word is most commonly used in the phrase "God Bless America," but what do we really mean when we say that? Is it a command aimed at God, an imperative invoking a benison? Is it a statement of our national nature? A claim of privilege? A wish for justification? Trying to give these abstractions meaning, evangelicals, like so many before them, have to turn to physical actions. It's a practice as old as humanity. But it's not very Protestant.

Which doesn't make me think religion, or Protestantism, is leaving the culture anytime soon. But I do wonder if Protestantism isn't about to undergo a sea change, in a direction heralded neither by James Dobson nor Marc Driscoll, nor even the mainline denominations.


*It was 500 years before Reformed and Lutheran branches settled the issue of the doctrine of the eucharistic host. Luther was a bit too close to the Roman teachings for the Reformed theologians, and the Reformed theologians were a bit to dismissive of the presence of the Presence for Lutherans. These tiny and almost meaningless distinctions matter. Or, they used to.

George W. Bush, can you please go now?

Admittedly, it's a pointless endeavor, but then, what's a blog for?

"More people need to have their own home there," Bush said. "But the systems are in place to continue the reconstruction in New Orleans. You know, people said, 'Well, the federal response was slow.' Don't tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed."

The now-infamous statement of George W. Bush on Katrina. I'm curious about the number he quoted, but notice what he says here: "But the systems are in place to continue the reconstruction in New Orleans."

Wow. And Katrina was, what, 3+ years ago? Good to know "systems are in place," huh?

But back to that number? Where the heck does it come from? No one seems to know, (see., e.g., here and here) though the consensus (such as it is), is that Bush took it from the number of people reportedly at the Superdome during the flood. Just doing a rough calculation of one helicopter removing one or more persons (don't even know the load limit of the helicopters that were used, but I know they weren't hauling people off by the busloads in one trip) at a time, and figuring 15-30 minutes per rooftop (takes time to get people into the harness, etc., and every rescue is unique), that would be, what, 7500 to 15,000 hours of rescue time? Or about one to two years, working around the clock.

I guess boats helped out a bit, huh?

Even if my rough calculations are wildly off, consider how many days it took to empty out the Superdome and remove those people, by busloads, to shelters. Many of them had to come to Houston; others went even further away. The evacuation took weeks to finish. Removing 30,000 people one at a time from rooftops by helicopter? A moment's consideration indicates the number is so absurd it should be laughed at. And if this number had come from Ron Paul or Ross Perot or even Dennis Kucinich, it would be.

But it came from our President. And nobody at the press conference so much as did the back of the envelope calculatin to say: "Uh, Mr. President, excuse me but.. wtf?"

Of course, this was a press conference that also included this gem:

Responding to a reporter's question about the observation that the presidency has been called "the loneliest job in the world," Mr. Bush insisted the phrase "burdens of the office is overstated." Feigning emotion he asked, " Why me, the burdens? Why did the financial collapse have to happen on my watch? Its just pathetic; the self pity." In a curious choice of words Mr. Bush recalled, "Even in the darkest moments of Iraq, you know, there was - and every day, when I was reading the reports about soldiers losing their lives, no question there was a lot of emotion, but also there was times where we could be lighthearted and support each other."

So maybe we should just be asking: "Mr. President, can you just go now?"

Knock, knock, knockin' at the deep heart's core

Courtesy of Expat in UK comes this "Hmmm...."

The "modern evangelical machine" is a product of the 1970s and '80s, when a new generation of business-savvy pastors developed strategies to reach unbelievers turned off by traditional worship and evangelization. Their approach was "seeker sensitive": upon learning that many people didn't go in for stained glass and steeples, these pastors made their churches look like shopping malls. Complex theology intimidated the curious, and talk of damnation alienated potential converts — so they played down doctrine in favor of upbeat, practical teachings on the Christian life.

These megachurches, like Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston and Bill Hybels's Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, have come to symbolize American evangelicalism. By any quantitative measure they are wildly successful, and their values and methods have diffused into the evangelical bloodstream. Yet some megachurches have begun to admit what critics maintained all along: numbers are not everything. In the fall of 2007, leaders of Willow Creek sent shockwaves through the evangelical world when they announced the results of a study in which churchgoers reported feeling stagnant in their faith and frustrated with slick, program-driven pastors. "As an evangelical, I would say this tells us something," Stetzer says. "The center is not holding."

First, let me say: "Why am I not surprised?" Second, let me say there is, indeed, nothing new under the sun. Third, let me say: Huh?

But what is new about Driscoll is that he has resurrected a particular strain of fire and brimstone, one that most Americans assume died out with the Puritans: Calvinism, a theology that makes Pat Robertson seem warm and fuzzy.

Dude, come to East Texas sometime, where the Presbyterians (who invented Calvinism, or think they did) vie with the Southern Baptists to see how many more they can find to condemn. Growing up in the PCUS of my youth, the only difference between us and the Baptists was, they were more emotional. Reformed theology is dead? Yeah, right; replaced by what? Lutheranism?

But the issue before us is this new kind of mega-church at Mars Hill:

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.

The article goes on to link this to Puritanism, which is pretty much what this sounds like. Puritanism redux, in fact. But set aside the caricatures of Puritanism a moment, because the appeal of this theology is actually quite interesting:

Traditional evangelical theology falls apart in the face of real tragedy, says the 20-year-old Brett Harris, who runs an evangelical teen blog with his twin brother, Alex. Reducing God to a projection of our own wishes trivializes divine sovereignty and fails to explain how both good and evil have a place in the divine plan. "There are plenty of comfortable people who can say, 'God's on my side,' " Harris says. "But they couldn't turn around and say, 'God gave me cancer.' "

Or, as a pastor friend of mine put it once, when a church member told him the member preferred to stay home and watch Roert Schuller on TV: "Yeah, call him when you need someone to do a funeral." When simplistic feel-good theology runs into reality, the only response I've ever encountered is: "God will not give you more than you can handle." But I've never heard the grieving family member say that, or the dying cancer patient.

Every pastor who actually pastors a church, rather than administers a mega-church, has had to face the tough issues. In my first year of ministry, still in seminary, I dealt with a member with severe trauma from childhood; a dying husband confined to his bed; the deaths of two teenagers in a car wreck. In my first year out of seminary, I conducted a funeral for an infant who died in her crib, for a mother who was only tangentially connected to the church; and had to answer the guestion of a wife who's husband had been rushed to the hospital on life support, and just told it should be removed: "What should I do?" These are not questions that have anything to do with "seeker services" or "business-savvy strategies." And people don't cope with them because you've told them repeatedly God wants them to be rich, or simply be middle-class Americans.

Which is not to say, however, the only alternative is a throwback to the cruder forms of Calvinism.

I'm not even sure how Calvinistic this "theology" is, if only because Calvin warned against assuming you were among the elect. The central thesis of his teaching was humility, was that "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God," and since no one could know who was among the elect, you must live as if your salvation depended on your actions. Indeed, Calvin is as subtle a theologian and compassionate a believer as ever Luther was; but his works, like most of Luther's, are "classics" in Mark Twain's definition of the word: widely praised, but no one reads them. So if this is Calvinism, it's the Calvinism of the Gutres in Jorge Luis Borges' "The Gospel According To Mark:" one that is in the blood, and little resembles the teachings and theology that now bears its name. This is Calvinism Marc Driscoll and his followers have inherited, in other words, not discovered. Everything old is new again. There is, indeed, nothing new under the sun.

There is, for example, something to this:

Marianne Esterly, a women's counselor at Mars Hill, says she tries to help women resist the desperation that can come with forgetting that man's chief end is to glorify God, not to obsess over earthly problems. "They worship the trauma, or the anorexia, and that's not what they're designed to worship," she says. "Christian self-help doesn't work. We can't do anything. It's all the work of Christ."

But then again, the "work of Christ" they advocate is simply what they believe people should do. Do that, and you are letting Christ work through you. Fail to do that, and you are relying on yourself. It's wonderfully simplistic, and horribly misguided. I mean, after all, Driscoll's critique of other evangelicals is that they have "feminized" Christ, and they promote a culture of "chicks and some chickified dudes with limp wrists."

Yeah, that's what Christ taught: how not to be "feminine." Precisely why he had so many women in his entourage, told his disciples to "turn the other cheek," rebuked Peter for taking up the sword when the Romans came to arrest him, and asked the Pharisee "Do you see this woman?".

To be fair, Driscoll's version of Christ is an old one. My first thought on reading this article was of "The Dream of the Rood," an Old English poem.

I saw then the Saviour of
mankind
hasten with great zeal, as if he wanted to climb up on me.
There I did not dare, against the word of the Lord,
bow or break, when I saw the
corners of the earth tremble. I might have
felled all the enemies; even so, I stood fast.
He stripped himself then, young hero - that was God almighty -
strong and resolute; he ascended on the high gallows,
brave in the sight of many, when he wanted to ransom
mankind.
I trembled when the warrior embraced me; even then I did not
dare to bow to earth,
fall to the corners of the earth, but I had to stand fast.
I was reared a cross. I raised up the powerful King,
the Lord of heaven; I did not dare to bend.
They pierced me with dark nails; on me are the wounds visible,
the open wounds of malice; I did not dare to injure any of them.
They mocked us both together. I was all drenched with blood
poured out from that man's side after he had sent forth his spirit.
I have experienced on that hillside many
cruelties of fate. I saw the God of hosts
violently stretched out. Darkness had
covered with clouds the Ruler's corpse,
the gleaming light. Shadows went forth
dark under the clouds. All creation wept,
lamented the King's fall. Christ was on the cross.
Yet there eager ones came from afar
to that noble one; I beheld all that.
I was all drenched with sorrow; nevertheless I bowed down to the hands of the men,
humble, with great eagerness. There they took almighty God,
lifted him from that oppressive torment. The warriors forsook me then
standing covered with moisture; I was all wounded with arrows.
They laid the weary-limbed one down there, they stood at the head of his body,
they beheld the Lord of heaven there, and he himself rested there a while,
weary after the great battle.

It's a death worthy of Beowulf, and no surprise coming from a warrior culture. Certainly not a very "feminine" Christ there. And, to be fair, Harvey Cox revolted against the "bourgeois," orderly, "feminized" (it was pre-feminist days for Harvey) Christ of my childhood, in the 1970's. (The picture above, for example; hardly the features of a Semite, much less a peasant; and that ethereal robe, those doe-like eyes. Precisely the imago Dei Cox was reacting to.) I don't go to the conclusion Driscoll reaches, but I sympathize with how he gets there. What I don't sympathize with is his ecclesiology:

Nowhere is the connection between Driscoll's hypermasculinity and his Calvinist theology clearer than in his refusal to tolerate opposition at Mars Hill. The Reformed tradition's resistance to compromise and emphasis on the purity of the worshipping community has always contained the seeds of authoritarianism: John Calvin had heretics burned at the stake and made a man who casually criticized him at a dinner party march through the streets of Geneva, kneeling at every intersection to beg forgiveness. Mars Hill is not 16th-century Geneva, but Driscoll has little patience for dissent. In 2007, two elders protested a plan to reorganize the church that, according to critics, consolidated power in the hands of Driscoll and his closest aides. Driscoll told the congregation that he asked advice on how to handle stubborn subordinates from a "mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighter, good guy" who attends Mars Hill. "His answer was brilliant," Driscoll reported. "He said, 'I break their nose.' " When one of the renegade elders refused to repent, the church leadership ordered members to shun him. One member complained on an online message board and instantly found his membership privileges suspended. "They are sinning through questioning," Driscoll preached. John Calvin couldn't have said it better himself.

I consider the appeal to Reformed theology to be a thin veil of justification for actions like this (and my complaint there is with the journalist. Reformed theology is alive and well and not a fossilized relic unchanged since Calvin was running Geneva.) Calvin was more nearly following the culture of his day than establishing a theological principal. He might well have justified his actions by grounding them in theology, but the kingdom of God, where the first will be last, and the last first, pretty well drains that attitude of any justification. Nor do I see any evidence Driscoll is such a careful student of Calvin's biography; it sounds like he's just a bully who likes being in charge. When the church is yours, rather than part of a denomination, you can pretty much get away with that. See, for example, Rick Warren's since removed web-page statement limiting church membership at Saddleback to non-homosexuals, are at least those who "repent" of their sexual orientation.

One more reason I'm not a big fan of non-denominational churches. And, of course, that's of a piece with this:

Driscoll is still the one who gazes down upon Mars Hill's seven congregations most Sundays, his sermons broadcast from the main campus to jumbo-size projection screens around the city. At one suburban campus that I visited, a huge yellow cross dominated center stage — until the projection screen unfurled and Driscoll's face blocked the cross from view. Driscoll's New Calvinism underscores a curious fact: the doctrine of total human depravity has always had a funny way of emboldening, rather than humbling, its adherents.

Aye, there's the rub. When does the founder of the church that Marc built tell his congregation they can do it without him? When does he step aside and point the way, not to Marc, but to Christ?

The Crime of Violence and War

Co-sponsor and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican said before the vote: "The Israelis ... are responding exactly the same way we would."

Oh, for the power to make him eat those words. Is this, for example, the way we would respond?

The statement [of the ICRC] said a team of four Palestine Red Crescent ambulances accompanied by Red Cross representatives made its way to Zeitoun Wednesday where it “found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. They were too weak to stand up on their own. One man was also found alive, too weak to stand up. In all, there were at least 12 corpses lying on mattresses.”

In another house, the statement said, the rescue team “found 15 other survivors of this attack including several wounded. In yet another house, they found an additional three corpses. Israeli soldiers posted at a military position some 80 meters away from this house ordered the rescue team to leave the area which they refused to do. There were several other positions of the Israeli Defense Forces nearby as well as two tanks.”

Because of berms built by Israeli forces, the ambulances could not enter the area so “the children and the wounded had to be taken to the ambulances on a donkey cart,” the statement said.

Israel, of course, says it does not target citizens. Hmmmm....

Katarina Ritz, the ICRC's head of mission in Jerusalem, said experienced Palestinian emergency workers wept at the scenes they were confronted with.

She said Israeli troops were within about 100m of the houses in question, and that the ICRC believes the soldiers "must have been aware" of the presence of the wounded people, because of repeated requests from aid agencies for access.

Under international law, she said, even if there are security concerns meaning the injured cannot be evacuated, "the minimum is to treat these people, to feed these people, give them water, and keep them in a safe place".

The ICRC is quite critical of Israel's actions:

The statement said the international Red Cross “believes that in this instance the Israeli military failed to meet its obligation under international humanitarian law to care for and evacuate the wounded. It considers the delay in allowing rescue services access unacceptable.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was even more critical:

Navi Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, singled out the killing of 30 Palestinian civilians in a home in central Gaza that was shelled by Israeli forces, and their alleged neglect of young, starving children whose mothers died in the attack.

"I am concerned with violations of international law. Incidents such as this must be investigated because they display elements of what could constitute war crimes," Pillay told Reuters in an interview.

I can understand Hamas not following the Geneva Convention, frankly. Understand it, which does not excuse but rather condemns Hamas. They were elected to govern Gaza, and they have done a poor job of it simply by attacking Israel, rather than trying to work out a better arrangement for the citizens they are responsible for. But that doesn't excuse Israel one bit. I heard the children in this house interviewed on the BBC. No one listening could not imagine they will grow up happy to join Hamas in their attacks on Israel. Hearing their stories, it's almost hard to blame them.

Sadly, I'm afraid Sen. McConnell is right, and the US would have done exactly what Israel is doing in Gaza. That is not, however, the recommendation he imagines it is.

Still hung up on this....

Mad Priest picked up on the cross controversy I mentioned earlier, and the comments there are so good I decided to steal some of that conversation, because I had further thoughts on the subject anyway.

First, MP tells me:

St John's, Broadbridge Heath, is an "evangelical and charismatic" church (at least, the vicar, his wife and the Parish Council want it to be called that).

Which is a bit of "insider information" to keep in mind while reviewing this topic again. That leads me to KJ's comment on the ecclesiological question, i.e., what if "seekers" were put off by this sculpture:

If passers by are offended and put off by a symbol, regardless of what that symbol is, then I'm not convinced they have any real interest, or leading, at least at that time, to investigate what the church should be on about. My point above is Jesus is a bigger stumbling block than the cross as symbol. Should we jettison him?

In the early 90s at the church in Evangelical Land I attended, and at which I was in a leadership position, a new pastor came in and decided we needed to be "seeker sensitive." Buh bye, long prayers -- You'll put "seekers" to sleep. Buh bye, Advent wreath -- No one knows what "Advent" is -- You'll just confuse the pretty little heads of seekers. Wow! Those hymns are long and boring; they need to go away. We need simple music that "seekers" can understand and remember. Oh, so buh bye fabulous organ (Throne of KJ), because we don't need you in order to be able to sing ditties. And yes, buy bye cross, symbol of death. Ick! Communion seems awkward during a church service, and what a downer with that talk of blood and broken body. Let's schedule it for times when the least amount of people would be offended.

Soon it was clear we were to be about as little as possible so we would be as palatable as possible to the greatest amount of hypothetical "seekers" as possible who would, in my view, have little understanding of the faith into which they were tricked.

We're not selling soap or gym memberships, and I trust we're not relying on branded symbols to fill pews. If our focus is how to fill seats, then I hope we die as a faith. If our focus is being the body of Christ on earth, which is a great deal more about those who have no likelihood of ever taking a seat, and what is that to us, then the pews will take care of themselves.

There's also the simple fact that, while this kind of "evangelism" is appealing to churches who think growth is the reason for their existence, it's been established this kind of evangelism doesn't really "grow" anything except people who fill the pews.

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.

(Yes, I have no shame; I quote myself.) So if evangelism is your goal, the first question to be asked is: what's the content of your message, not: what's the success rate of your effort, as measured by filled pews.

Interestingly, the church in question is now trying to defend its position, which may well have been misrepresented by the quotes in the news articles:

Press reports have been very misleading, suggesting that we are somehow dumbing down the message of the cross and undermining the symbol of the cross in an age of political correctness. The reality is, in fact, the complete opposite. It is precisely because we believe passionately in the significance of the crucifixion of Christ that we felt led to have this particular version of the crucifix removed. What will not be clear to readers or radio listeners who have not seen the crucifix in person is the fact that the artist chose to portray Christ's facial expression as one which indicates despair and hopelessness. While this makes it an interesting piece of art, it also means that this artistic choice made by the sculptor makes this particular crucifix a misleading version of the symbol of the cross, failing to communicate the significance of the crucifixion of Christ as an event which brings eternal and undying hope to this world. Christ did not approach the crucifixion with any sense of despair or hopelessness; he did not suffer on the cross in an attitude of hopelessness; and he did not die in an attitude of hopelessness. Quite the contrary: Christ approached the cross with steadfast courage and determination; he suffered in an attitude of knowing what he was achieving through his death; and he finally faced death with certainty about the significance of his death - the steadfast hope of bringing about the redemption of humankind from the power of sin; the hope of demonstrating the full extent of God's gracious love and forgiveness; and hope that looked forward to the promise of the Resurrection on Easter morning, when the power of death, sin and evil would be broken.

The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus must be held together in tension; it is vital that we know that God in Christ experienced and identified with the very worst suffering of this world - past, present and future - and it is vital that we know that God brought about a resounding victory over that suffering and torment two days later on that first Easter Sunday.

In the light of this message of hopefulness, having a crucifix mounted on the outside of our church that declared a message of perpetual despair and hopelessness would not be faithful to the New Testament account of the significance of the crucifixion. As a church, we want to bring a message of hope and welcome to our local community, and not one of despair, hopelessness and rejection.

Fair enough, and not such bad reasoning, all in all. I don't think anyone put words in the Vicar's mouth; but the church is deserving of the benefit of the doubt, and another bite at the apple, having failed so badly to explain themselves the first time around. And I was going to say, on reconsideration, that this situation presents interesting challenges.

I know many of the older cathedrals in Europe include elaborate displays of Biblical narratives, including such frightful and despairing depictions as the Last Judgment. Hardly a cheering or inviting subject but, given the cultural locus of the buildings, not exactly off-putting. I don't know of any church that makes a prominent display of a crucifix, however. So there is an argument to be made that this is a rare situation, and one that doesn't necessarily underline the "message of hope" they taught me in homiletics I should always include in my sermons.

On the other hand: was this sculpture really about "despair and hopelessness?" Again, an aesthetic question. I find it moving and challenging, especially as the figure on the cross, far from looking defeated or even limp (the kind of crucifix I'm more familiar with), actually has its head upright, and seems to be looking at something on its left, and directing our attention there. So perhaps this references the conversation between Jesus and the two criminals, as recorded in Luke? Which would mean this sculpture could be an opening point for discussion, especially about what Jesus said?

"I swear to you, today you'll be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43b, SV)

One of the hardest lessons I learned in seminary, but one of the most important, was the need to include the entire Biblical story in my understanding of God, of humanity, of ecclesiology (the purpose and mission of the church). The more you pick and choose from scripture, the more you shape something that resembles you, and not God. All those prickly passages and challenging demands and downright offensive or irreconcilable bits of Scripture, from Genesis 2 through Deutero Paul and especially the Letter to the Hebrews (well, for me, anyway), have to be included in my preaching and pastoring, or it isn't God's word I proclaim, but my own.

I find it to be the only way to overcome despair and hopelessness. As Genesis (the rock group, not the book of Moses) sang it: "You've gotta get in to get out." And getting in sometimes means you've got to get in despite not being especially drawn to the place. I mean, if that criminal was going to be with Jesus in paradise that day, he wasn't going to escape the cross to do it.

Curious form of evangelism, isn't it?

O, what a paradise it seems!

Aaron David Miller tells NPR this morning that the US has lately transformed it's "special" relationship with Israel into an "exclusive" one. Gee, wonder where he got that idea?

The Senate voiced strong support Thursday for Israel's battle against Hamas militants in Gaza, while urging a ceasefire that would prevent Hamas from launching any more rockets into Israel.

The chamber agreed on a voice vote to the non-binding resolution co-sponsored by Democratic and Republican party leaders in the chamber.

"When we pass this resolution, the United States Senate will strengthen our historic bond with the state of Israel, by reaffirming Israel's inalienable right to defend against attacks from Gaza, as well as our support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said before the vote.

Noting that Israel was bent on halting Hamas rocket fire into its southern towns, Reid said: "I ask any of my colleagues to imagine that happening here in the United States. Rockets and mortars coming from Toronto in Canada, into Buffalo New York. How would we as a country react?"

Apparently by killing our foes at the rate of almost 60 to 1.

Co-sponsor and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican said before the vote: "The Israelis ... are responding exactly the same way we would."

Yes, I'd like to think that we, too, would destroy a convoy of humanitarian aid.

Mr. JOHN GING (Director of Operations, UNRWA, Gaza): That's the whole point. They were fully informed, and they had given the green light for it to proceed through their liaison office in real time. And that's not just the first event. These incidents is happening(ph), occurring at an alarming and repetitive rate over the last period of time. And we have been receiving assurance and reassurance after assurance, again, that they would not reoccur. Today, tragically, a contractor of ours lost his life because we took, at good faith, the green light that was given, and moments later, he's dead.

And Gaza? Oh, what a paradise it seems!

NORRIS: You've described conditions in Gaza right now as hell on earth. What do you mean?

Mr. GING: Well, 750,000 people without water, (unintelligible) days and nights without sleep, incessant bombing, traumatized, nowhere safe, 670 dead, over 3,000 injured, a million people in Gaza already destitute and food aid dependent on hand outs and food from the U.N., not getting their food at the moment. The power plant has been closed down since 31st of December, no electricity for a million people. You know, the list goes on and on.

Haven't we seen this movie? Didn't we call it "Iraq"? Maybe that's why the Congress is so supportive of Israel, huh?

The Senate resolution encourages President George W. Bush "to work actively to support a durable, enforceable and sustainable ceasefire in Gaza as soon as possible that prevents Hamas from retaining or rebuilding the capability to launch rockets or mortars against Israel," Reid said.

IOW, dust off and nuke the whole thing from space. It's the only way to be sure. Certainly the only military way to keep Hamas from ever launching a rocket again. What? I'm serious.

It also expresses an "unwavering" commitment to Israel's welfare and recognizes its right to act in self defense to protect citizens against acts of terrorism, he said. "It allows for the long-term improvement of daily living conditions of the ordinary people of Gaza," he said.

So, I'm not sanguine about this report in the Guardian:

The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's ­doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.

And Mr. Miller makes a re-appearance:

"Unless he is prepared to adopt a policy that is tougher, fairer and smarter than both of his predecessors you might as well hang a closed-for-the-season sign on any chance of America playing an effective role in defusing the current crisis or the broader crisis," [Aaron David Miller, a former state department adviser on the Middle East], said.

Obama has defined himself in part by his willingness to talk to America's enemies. But the president-elect would be wary of being seen to give legitimacy to Hamas as a consequence of the war in Gaza.

Bruce Hoffman, a ­counterterrorism expert at George­town University's school of foreign ­service, said it was unlikely that Obama would move to initiate contacts with Hamas unless the radical faction in Damascus was crippled by the conflict in Gaza. "This would really be dependent on Hamas's military wing having suffered a real, almost decisive, drubbing."

Even with such caveats, there is ­growing agreement, among Republicans as well as Democrats, on the need to engage Hamas to achieve a sustainable peace in the Middle East – even among Obama's close advisers.

I guess as long as we don't tell Congress, this will be fine. In the meantime:

A United Nations official said Thursday that humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip will be halted after attacks on U.N. staff and facilities by Israeli forces, who have waged a nearly two-week campaign there against Hamas militants.

U.N. spokesman Chris Gunness made the announcement shortly after the driver of a U.N. truck was killed by tank fire as he was headed to an Israeli border crossing to pick up an aid shipment.

Gunness said the U.N. delivery had been coordinated with Israel. The Israeli army has not commented.

Earlier this week, nearly 40 people were killed by Israeli mortar fire outside a U.N. school. Israel said its troops had come under fire by militants using the building for cover.

Oh, and the death toll in Gaza now tops 700. Israel reports 12 Israelis have died since Israel attacked Gaza, nine of them soldiers, none of them children.

Those deaths are on the heads of the leaders of Hamas and the leaders of Israel. Neither seems to care, however.

Massacre of the Innocents, indeed. Having said all that, Wounded Bird passes on the best response. Let the people say: Amen!

The World is Too Much With Us

I picked this up via Street Prophets where, frankly, the issue generated more heat than light.

The clergy at one Ashland church are refusing to sign marriage licenses until same-sex couples can legally tie the knot.

The Rev. Pam Shepherd and three retired clergy members who attend the Congregational United Church of Christ will still perform weddings. For the license, however, couples will have to see a judge or justice of the peace.

Shepherd told the Ashland Daily Tidings she made the decision after realizing that by signing the licenses she was inadvertently giving her approval to discrimination.

"Every time I sign a license, it's like I'm saying, 'OK,' but it's not OK," she said.

Now, if you're astute, you're wondering how the AP got hold of this. Well, maybe it's because the clergy of the church announced their principled stand through an advertisement:

Readers of the Medford Mail Tribune will wake up Friday to see a full page ad about marriage equality.

Clergy from Ashland’s First Congregational United Church of Christ is taking a stand.

From the ad:

“For too long, churches have participated in the denial of civil rights to same gender loving citizens by our willingness to sign marriage licenses for heterosexual couples while gay and lesbian couples were denied this legal right. At First Congregational United Church of Christ we will no longer sign marriage licenses for anyone until we are able to sign marriage licenses for everyone.

We will continue to celebrate the beautiful sacrament of marriage for all couples who wish their love and their spiritual union to be blessed by the church. And we will continue to fight for justice for same gender loving people as part of our call to follow the radical Jesus who leaves no one out.”

I would quibble that marriage is not a sacrament in the UCC, but that's a pedantic point. The real question here is the ethics of this "principled position." Because the more I think about it, the more it sounds like: "Let's you and him fight!"

The pastor of this church is aggrieved that, by her position and by her performing weddings, she is participating in a state-sanctioned system which discriminates; and her solution to that problem is to not participate in that system. Which might seem a principled stance, except it does nothing other than inconvenience those who want this pastor to officiate at their wedding. The pastor assuages her guilt by not signing a document. The bride and groom still have to participate in the system (presumably, unless Oregon, like Texas, recognizes common law marriage), so they have to find a secular agent with authority to solemnize the rites of marriage (as my Texas marriage license put it, many years ago). Some at Street Prophets praise this as giving "straights" a taste of what gays have to go through; except, of course, it doesn't at all, since gays can't go through any process to get married in Oregon or almost anywhere else in America, at this point. All this does is make people who want to be married by the clergy of this church go through extra steps that only make the clergy feel good about their non-actions and non-involvement in a system they are involved in in every other way every day of their lives. What is the real issue here? It's this one:

Force has become the modern figure of being. Being has allowed itself to be determined as a calculable force, and man, instead of relating to the being that his hidden under this figure of force, represents himself as quantifiable power.

Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, tr. David Wills (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 37.

What is this action, after all, except an attempt to exert force? And unable to exert it directly on the state, it is exerted through force on others. The "principled stance" here is that the clergy will not sign a legal document. The result is merely to leave the clergy's conscience clean, while forcing the married couple to go to the state and seek sanction a second time for their marriage. And this exertion of force is what defines the clergy of this church. They are, by public announcement, the ones who force you to sully yourselves with the state's unfair restrictions. They have washed their hands of the matter.

Derrida goes on to quote Jan Patocka:

Man has ceased being in a relation to Being and has instead become a powerful force, one of ths most powerful....As a social entity, especially, he has become an immense transmitter sending out cosmic forces that have been stored and locked up for an eternity. It would seem that in the world of pure forces he has become a grand accumulator that on the one hand exploits these forces in order to exist and reproduce, but that on the other hand and for the same reason, is plugged into the same circuit; he is stored, quantified, exploited and manipulated like any other system of forces.

Derrida, pp. 37-38.

Which is a philosophical way of stating the Christian ethical issue:

These conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your own cravings that are at war within you? You want something and do not have it, so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Adulterers! Do you now know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, "God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."--James 4:1-6

The first question that has to be asked when one decides to act in an ethical way as a Christian is: where does this craving come from? Am I seeking justice? Or am I seeking comfort? It is a question of responsibility. And that raises the question of the conditions of responsiblity. On what condition is responsibility possible? On the condition that the Good no longer be a transcendental objective, a relation between objective things, but the rleation to the other, a response to the other; an experience of personal goodness and a movement of intention. But, as Derrida asks:

On what condition does goodness exist beyond all calculation? On the condition that goodness forget itself, that the movement be a movement of the gift that renounces itself, hence a movement of infinite love. Only infinite love can renounce itself and, in order to become finite, become incarnated in order to love the other, to love the other as a finite other. This gift of infinite love comes from someone and is addressed to someone; responsibility demands irreplaceable singularity.

Derrida, p. 50-51

Which is my problem with this very public stance. It comes from someone, but it is addressed to everyone and no one. It is addressed to strangers and innocent bystanders, and it puts the burden of responsibility on them. You want me to perform your wedding? Fine, but I will do it and not do it at the same time. And the burden will be on you, the responsibility to make your marriage legal and binding and recognized under the laws of the state of Oregon, laws which after all confer no small number of benefits on those in the marriage (including children as yet unborn), those burdens and responsibilities will be entirely yours. As clergy, I will renounce my irreplaceable singularity in this one arena, in order to reject my responsibility. This is what the clergy of this church have declared, and declared quite publicly. And this is an ethical act? This is praiseworthy? I don't see it. To quote Patocka again:

The responsible man as such is a self, an individual that doesn't coincide with any role that he might happen to assume....he is a responsible self because, in confronting death and dealing with nothingness, he takes upon himself what only each one of us can realize in ourselves, that which makes each of us irreplaceable. Now, however, individuality has been related to infinite love and manis an individual because he is guilty, always guilty with respect to that love. Each is determined as individual by the uniqueness of what situates him in the generality of sin.

Derrida, p. 52.

We don't escape sin, in other words, by refusing to participate in any particular system we deem sinful. All we really do is irresponsibly try to disavow our responsiblity. In short, we proclaim ourselves holier than thou, and redouble our sin. As James puts it: "therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.'" Or, as Dorothy Day wrote:

I am reading (Simone Weil's) essays as a part of my Lenten reading...She says that we "...must experience every day, both in the spirit and the flesh, the pains and humiliations of poverty...and further we must do something which is harder than enduring in poverty, we must renounce all compensations: in our contacts with the people around us we must sincerely practice the humility of a naturalized citizen in the country which has received us."

I keep reminding the young people who come to work with us that they are not naturalized citizens...They are not really poor. We are always foreigners to the poor. So we have to make up for it by "renouncing all compensations..."

We who are not gay are not naturalized citizens in the struggle for gay rights, either. We are always foreigners to their struggles. "So we have to make up for it by 'renouncing all compensations...'" We have to take responsibility for our actions, not renounce our responsiblity. The former we can do; the latter we cannot do.

An Epiphany Meditation

Regarding the current situation in Gaza:

There is a chilling and nearly bloodless (which makes it chilling) point to examine here, and that's the "success" of "modern warfare."

It was once imagined the ability to drop bombs from the air would create a huge tactical advantage. That supposedly worked in World War II, although it still took ground troops to subdue Germany, and post-war studies indicate those who were bombed grew more resistant to the invaders (as did the Londoners during the Blitz), not less resistant. The only counter-example is supposedly the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but no one seems willing to repeat that experiment again. Certainly bombing doesn't seem to provide the complete advantage anymore, even as modern military technology comes more and more to rely on the delivery of bombs and missiles as the ultimate end of weapons systems. "Shock and awe" in Iraq didn't destroy the resistance. And despite an intensive bombing campaign in Gaza, Israel had to invade to stop Hamas from firing rockets.

And it still hasn't. But it has drawn unrelenting criticism for its actions. Mostly because the bombing is killing so many non-combatants, something that was deplorable when Germany did it to London, but not so bad by the time the Allies could return the favor. Still, despite bombing one of the most densely populated areas on the planet, Israel has only killed 600+ people, and hasn't subdued its foe one iota. (Neither, it should be pointed out, has Hamas; though the military argument, presumably, would be that Hamas lacks the firepower to impose its will on Israel.)

Why isn't technology (i.e., missiles and bombs) winning wars anymore? Or at least battles? And what does this say about the modern military state? What, indeed, does it say about the power of military power? Have things really changed that much since overwhelming force of arms, as employed by Genghis Khan, or Alexander, or Rome, or even the raiding parties of the clans who sang the story of Beowulf, was the rule? Have we really advanced warfare beyond the need for individuals bearing arms who can overwhelm other individuals, who are bearing arms or not?

It seems Hardy was right, in an ironic sense he didn't intend:

Christmas: 1924, by Thomas Hardy

Peace upon earth!' was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We've got as far as poison-gas.

"What did Jesus get for Christmas? A grave!"--Loudon Wainwright

Not quite sure what to make of this:

A statue of the crucifixion has been taken down from its perch on a church in Sussex because it was scaring local children and deterring worshippers, a vicar admitted today.

The Rev Ewen Souter, the vicar at St John's Church in Horsham, West Sussex, ordered the removal of the 10-foot sculpture of Jesus on the cross just before Christmas, branding it "unsuitable" and "a horrifying depiction of pain and suffering".

The 10ft resin sculpture, by Edward Bainbridge Copnall, a former president of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, will be replaced by a more "uplifting" stainless steel cross – to the dismay of more traditional parishioners.

Souter, formerly a cell biologist, said: "The crucifix expressed suffering, torment, pain and anguish. It was a scary image, particularly for children. Parents didn't want to walk past it with their kids, because they found it so horrifying.

"It wasn't a suitable image for the outside of a church wanting to welcome worshippers. In fact, it was a real put-off.

"We're all about hope, encouragement and the joy of the Christian faith. We want to communicate good news, not bad news, so we need a more uplifting and inspiring symbol than execution on a cross."

Well, that last statement is just horrifically bad theology. Since the earliest legitimate letters of Paul, the crucifixion has been at the center of Christian doctrine. Kind of hard to explain Moltmann's "crucified God" without it. Even harder to explain Easter and the importance of the Resurrection without it. And in fact, as Paul said more than once, it was meant to be a difficult symbol to get around. Funny, in fact, that 2000 years later, it's still provocative.

But this seems to be an aesthetic question, as well as a theological and ecclesiological one. The latter would be the "What is church for?" question, which one anonymous parish member answers with this harrumph:

"The crucifix is the oldest and most famous symbol of the Christian church. Pulling it down and putting up something that would look more at home on the side of a flashy modern shopping centre is not the way to get more bums on seats.

"Next they'll be ripping out the pews and putting sofas in their place, or throwing out all the Bibles and replacing them with laptops. It's just not right."

Which is still pretty much a "Because we've always done it this way!" response. Fitting, since the vicar's argument seems to be: "It's ugly and old-fashioned and we have to move with the times!"

Except, as I say, the problem seems to be one of aesthetics. I've certainly seen more graphic and disturbing crucifixes than this one; ones with nails, skin tone, blood, and a crown of thorns that would make your heart stop, not to mention a gaping abdominal wound. Ones, in other words, where the figure is all too human. So maybe it's the modernity of this one, a modern sculpture that creates an immediacy the familiar traditional crucifixes now obscure. And all of this returns us to the question: what is church for? Is it for disturbing people and scaring small children? Or is it to be attractive and draw people in? Should the church practice truth in advertising? Or should it hide the scary and ugly stuff until Lent, and even then only trot it out on Good Friday for the handful who bother to come in?

No, I'm serious.

Epiphany 2009

I promised myself I wouldn't do this.



This is what you should be reading.

Later that Same Year: Meditation for New Year's Day, 2009

Ecclesiastes 3:1-13
3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

3:2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

3:3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

3:4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

3:5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

3:6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;

3:7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

3:8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

3:9 What gain have the workers from their toil?

3:10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with.

3:11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

3:12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live;

3:13 moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.

Psalm 8
8:1 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

8:2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.

8:3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

8:4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

8:5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

8:6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,

8:7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

8:8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

8:9 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Revelation 21:1-6a
21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

21:2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;

21:4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away."

21:5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

21:6a Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

Matthew 25:31-46
25:31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.

25:32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,

25:33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

25:34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;

25:35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,

25:36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.'

25:37 Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?

25:38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?

25:39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?'

25:40 And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.'

25:41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;

25:42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,

25:43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'

25:44 Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?'

25:45 Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'

25:46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

It took me a few days to realize these are good words for starting off the new year. They are the lectionary selections for New Year's Day, but if we're past that by a day or two, what does it matter? It's still the new year, and we don't need to be so wed to the calendar that the observance itself has to end when the 24 hours is over. After all, it's still Christmas!

But these are challenging words to start a new year with; judgmental words, even. "To everything there is a season" already violates our sense of time: we don't want things to be seasonal, we want them to be occasional, and the occasion to be right now, if we need it; and later, if we don't need it right now. We don't want time to come in order, unless it's tax time coming only once a year, and Christmas coming only once a year, but then only because we don't like taxes, and we start Christmas earlier and earlier, and the sooner it's over the better! Then there's that funny part that, as we get older, Christmas and taxes and whatever else we look forward to but don't really, seems to come faster and faster and more and more often. We've really kind of broken the seasons, in fact; literally as well as figuratively. Long out of school as most of us are, our lives are still ruled by school holidays: summer, then Christmas break, then the Easter holiday, then summer again. But the seasons mean less to us than to farmers. One season just means we run the A/C, the other just means we run the heat; and in between the most agricultural practice we follow is whether to mow, rake, or shovel. There is no rhythm to our seasons anymore, except the rhythm of shopping (Christmas, especially after Thanksgiving Day) or school (summer, the afore-mentioned holidays).

Just to think that "To everything there is a season" is already to put ourselves out of primary position, out of first place, out of the driver's seat. We don't want to be in charge (who wants the responsibility?), but we want to be in control. So to everything there is a season, when those seasons and those things suit us, and serve us, and please us. Otherwise, away with them, please!

But the Preacher doesn't give us that. He puts us out of control, but recognizes how disturbed we are by that. Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun! This is the beginning of wisdom:

I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God's gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.

Now there, at least, is a change: eating and drinking and working are not punishments and drudgeries, they are pleasures we all should enjoy. Easy enough to remember during these holidays (unless you are the one in the kitchen all the time! Been there, done that, own the franchise!). God, we are assured, has made everything suitable for its time. And when things are not suitable, is that God, too? Or is that human beings, trying to play at God? Is the basiliea tou theou a place where no one works and everyone eats without labor? Or is it a place where everyone enjoys their food and their drink and their labor, too? But that labor serves everyone, not just those who claim to be in control of the system; until they are not.

That, too, is a meditation for this new year.

We have a sense of the past and the future in our minds, Eccelesiastes tells us, yet even with that we cannot seem to see beyond the present, or to think beyond our own needs. And that brings us to what I'd always thought were the harsh words of Matthew, the parable that revolves around the painful and fearful question: "Lord, when did we see you?"

I don't know if Matthew even meant to add the emphasis on "see," but I inevitably do. It makes these words so plaintive, this question so freighted with despair, that it breaks my heart everytime I read it. So when I read these words as part of the New Year's Day lectionary, I had to hesitate. I had to hesitate a few days before I could say anything from them. And then I realized these words don't have to be said at all, that these words could be a blessing on another year, a statement of Christology, even, that could start the year off in ways new and unexpected and as a blessing. Because what does this story say? It says, as Leonard Bernstein once wrote, that God is the simplest of all. And that all you have to do, in your everyday life, in your quotidian existence, in your daily efforts of labor and eating and drinking, is to see your brother, your sister, hungry, naked, in jail...and do something for them. Anything. A little thing. A meal; a cup of water; a visit. And doing that for them, you actually do it for God. Imagine that. How simple is it? You spend your time looking for God, looking for something to fulfill your days, to satisfy your needs, and there it is beside you the whole time, and what's asked of you? Almost nothing. What does it take to serve God? Almost nothing.

"Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee," Augustine famously said; and somebody took off with that and called it a "God-shaped hole" in us that we must fill, and that became exclusionary and the favorite hammer of the fundamentalists with which to prey up on the rest of us, and for a long time I couldn't make peace with Augustine because of it, and I just rejected the idea outright. And then, just yesterday, just a day or two ago now, I understood. It isn't that we have this hole, this lacking, this emptiness that only "God" can fill. It is that we have needs, wants, desires, which are bottomless: and there are good ways to satisfy them, and less good; and even bad ways. And the fullest satisfaction, we can call "God." So that Christ is both the teacher, and the teaching. And the teaching is that we can simply find God, in simply seeing others as human beings, too. Which brings us to what John saw, on the island of Patmos: the new heaven, and the new earth; and the new Jerusalem, where God lives with all the people. All the people who are God's people.

It is to hard to see it, isn't it? War widespread and spreading; famine created largely by failures in distribution; diseases rampant that don't need to be; people oppressed because those with power find it easier to be oppressive than humane. It is so easy to start another year in judgment, and to use these words like a cudgel, to lay about against our opponents and our enemies and in trying to destroy them to simply make more of them. It is the task of killing the hydra, and we never think to kill the body instead of hacking at the heads.

To everything there is a season; and this is the season of reassessing, and reconsidering. This is the pause we allow ourselves, to consider what courses we have followed, and what courses we could choose, if only we would be wise. It is really very simple, and it really does all come down to this: God has made everything suitable for its time. When you see someone in need, whether it is great need or small, you see the Christ, the Anointed One: you see God. And you have your chance to serve the Messiah. And the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem where God dwells with all the people, is a vision of here and now, not the sweet bye and bye. If God has put a sense of past and future into our heads, but we still cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end, why can't this be true? Why can't the Revelation speak of the continuing present, one continuing for nearly 2000 years? Why should this year be any different from the last, except that we start it off with new eyes, seeing through new hearts, serving with new joy? What are we that God is mindful of us, and yet God has put us in charge of all this? It is a wonderful responsibility. It is a great joy. This is the day the Lord has made; and the year; and the lifetime; and the whole of creation. Rejoice and be glad in it.

Happy New Year. Allow every season its time; allow all your time its, not your, purpose. Look for the Christ. He is easy to find. And help him. It's all you have to do, to serve him. What could be a better way to start the new year, than that?

Really don't mind if you sit this one out...

This is just completely nuts:

Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark.

And the suspicious remark?

"My brother and his wife were discussing some aspect of airport security," Irfan said. "The only thing my brother said was, 'Wow, the jets are right next to my window.' I think they were remarking about safety."

The position of the airline?

"At the end of the day, people got on and made comments they shouldn't have made on the airplane, and other people heard them," Hutcheson said. "Other people heard them, misconstrued them. It just so happened these people were of Muslim faith and appearance. It escalated, it got out of hand and everyone took precautions."

But wait, there's more!

"For us, it just highlights that security is everybody's responsibility," Howe said. "Someone heard something that was inappropriate, and then the airline decided to act on it. We certainly support [the pilot's] call to do that."

The passive voice raised to a universal screech. We are all complicit in what AirTran Airlines did. When everyone is to blame, no one is to blame.

Except, of course, "traditionally Muslim in appearance" people, who should know better than to have conversations on American planes. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave, after all.

But those people don't get on airplanes anymore; apparently.

Hogmanay! 2008

I understand Hogmanay is actually a bit more raucous than this 'carol' might indicate.* Anyway, I'm a bit late putting it up, but better late than never. Happy New Year, y'all!

From the Carmina Gadelica:

I am now come to your country,
To renew to you the Hogmanay,
I need not tell you of it,
It was in the fime of our forefathers.

I ascend by the door lintel,
I descend by the doorstep,
I will sing my song becomingly,
Mannerly, slowly, mindfully.

The Hogmanay skin is in my pocket,
Great will be the smoke from it presently
The house-man will get it in his hand,
He will place its nose in the fire;
He will go sunwards round the babes,
and for seven verities round the housewife.

The housewife it is she who deserves it,
The hand to dispense to use the Hogmanay,
A small gift of the bloom of summer,
Mauch I wish it with the bread.

Give it to us if it be possible,
If you may not, do not detain us,
I am the servant of God's Son at the door,
Arise thyself and open to me.



*sorta like this:

Hogmanay of the sack
Hogmanay of the sack,
Hogmanay of the sack,
Strike the hide,
Strike the hide.

Hogmanay of the sack,
Hogmanay of the sack,
Beat the skin,
Beat the skin.

Hogmanay of the sack,
Hogmanay of the sack,
Down with it! up with it!
Strike the hide.

Hogmanay of the sack,
Hogmanay of the sack,
Down with it! up with it!
Beat the skin.

Hogmanay of the sack,
Hogmanay of the sack.

Still not sure what that has to do with running around naked carrying torches, but I'm researching it.

New Year's Day, 2009

The Blessing of the New Year

God, bless to me the new day,
Never vouchsafed to me before;
It is to bless Thine own presence
Thou hast given me this time, O God.

Bless Thou to me mine eye,
May mine eye bless all it sees;
I will bless my neighbour,
May my neighbour bless me.

God, give me a clean heart,
Let me not from sight of Thine eye;
Bless to me my children and my wife,
And bless to me my means and my cattle.

from the Carmina Gadelica