"What you mean 'we,' white man?"

The old joke goes that the Lone Ranger and Tonto are watching a horde of Indian braves bear down on them in full battle fury. "Looks like we're in trouble, Tonto," says the Lone Ranger to his pal. "What you mean 'we,' white man?," Tonto responds.

Paul gets blamed for a lot of things: sexism, misogyny, legalist, that seem to plague Christianity. But Paul never gets blamed for starting the church. Which is odd, because it iwas Paul who first used the term "ekklesia" (the basis for our English word "ecclesiastical," or even "Ecclesiastes"). One very distinctive aspect of Jesus' life: Jesus never tried to found a "church."

There is a simple cultural reason for this, but one that gets lost in modern culture, where we distinctly understand church as distinct from state, and church as distinct from the rest of our lives. Church as an avocation, even a profession (depending on which side of of the Protestant/Catholic divide you are on, in Western Christianity), is something you do. You are a priest, or a lay person, an active church member, or an occassional one. Seldom, and without great strain and effort, do we think of church as something we are. Church is the Body of Christ. Church is the community of believers. Church is the clouds of witness, the communion of the saints. But "church" is always outside of "me." There is, in fact, no English phrase for a collective "we" that would suffice there. Church is not outside of "us." Church is outside of "me," whatever "me" reads that sentence.

Church is something we go to, attend, participate in, join, support, condemn, worry about, praise, curse, seek blessing from....but it is not "us." Not in the sense it was in Jesus' day.

But even that is misleading, because in no sense in Jesus' day did the concept of "church" exist. Jesus didn't even speak of the ekklesia. Jesus only spoke of the children of God. I don't think there's even a mention of the "children of Abraham" attributed to Jesus in the Gospels; at least not in the sense that, say, Paul would mean it. "Church" is the way we understand the working of God, today, in the world. And we still don't understand it properly.

What prompst this reflection? In part, left blogistan. The idea that YearlyKos, or any "movement" by bloggers, be it Eschaton or Firedoglake or DailyKos, is going to form a grass roots movement that will transform American political culture in some kind of new, pure, "people power" "populist" "netroots" campaign. It simply isn't going to happen. And the example of the ekklesia is why.

The complaint against Paul by people who want their Christianity purified, is that Paul co-opted the movement of Jesus of Nazareth, and domesticated it. This is not the complaint of cranks and know-nothings; this is a serious argument advanced by many New Testament scholars, and they do so neither in anger nor in sorrow, but simply in honesty. Jesus was an itinerant teacher who taught that there was no comfortable place for man on earth, except in doing the will of God. Paul planted "house churches," and taught an idea of ekklesia, a Greek word meaning people gathered together for a specific civic purpose. And there we already part company with Paul: "church" today does not gather for a specific civic purpose, because the civic square belongs to all, and we don't want Christians in any way to think they should, or deserve to, dominate it. But that concept is not new and Jeffersonian, as we imagine. It's actually old, and Roman. For Paul to describe his nascent movement of a few families following his teachings as an ekklesia, was for Paul to make a radical (and radically dangerous) political statement, much as it would be today. To use the term "ekklesia" is to claim a public, a civic, privilege for what is essentially a private group, and an intentionally private group, one you cannot enter without accepting certain teachings (at least), and baptism, and adhering to certain practices (the bulk of Paul's letters concern this issue). So even today, to mention the church is to set off alarm bells among some people, and the fact is, they aren't entirely wrong. Church is a threat to the secular community, at least inasmuch as church demands a place in the public square, but resolutely refuses to be wholly a part of the entire public entitled to that square.

But why didn't Jesus establish a church? Because Jesus didn't need to; Jesus had a ready-made community, a nation even: the nation of Israel, the children of Abraham.

This is another concept we have trouble grasping, and it isn't only because we are so accustomed to thinking of 19th century nation-states, those political entities of which the United States is the purest example. But the nation-state is without religious underpinnings, largely because the nation-state is, historically, a Johnny-come-lately, and also because it is a product of the anti-religious Enlightenment. I visited the Spanish missions of San Antonio yesterday. They are about to celebrate their 275th anniversary, and four of the five (the fifth being actually the first, the Mission San Antonio de Valero, the "Alamo") are still active parishes, with Franciscans living on the premises. What struck me in the history of these missions, all established by Franciscans, is how much the Catholic church was an arm of the Spanish government. The Franciscans paved the way for Spanish conquest by teaching the natives Spanish ways, including both Spanish ways of life as well as religion (and this is why every mission had walls and bastions: the Apache and Comanche took the European guns and horses, but not the European culture. They fought back, and recognized the missions as a source of change, of invasion, that they resented. It was a modern-day lesson in empire building: if you wish to do it, you must be willing to live in a new country, and to convert or subdue the native populace. It was interesting how much the Franciscans were willing to do both.) But what Jesus taught was never in compliance with that Rome ordered; nor were Paul's teachings. So where does this leave political movements, especially political movements that seek to act "in his name"? It leaves them trying to build an ekklesia; but not in the sense that Paul meant, and certainly not in the direction Jesus meant.

"Certainly not"? That sounds terribly judgmental, but at some point you have to lay your cards on the table and declare your hand. So this is my declaration of mine. Jesus called many disciples, but some did not choose his way; and yet, he didn't reject them. He did reject those who tried to follow him without an invitation, or at least it seems he rejected them. In Luke 9, one man offers to follow Jesus, but Jesus makes clear he has nothing to offer: "Foxes have their holes, and birds their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." Immediately thereafter, Luke tells us, Jesus calls a new disciple, but gets this answer: "Let me first go and bury my father." Jesus doesn't say "Oh, never mind then, I'll wait." But he doesn't say "you're not worthy, " either. He makes it clear, in that case, and in the one just after, another would-be disciple who offers to follow Jesus if only he can finish plowing the field, Jesus makes it clear what must come first: God. All other considerations are secondary. Jesus was never afraid to lay those cards on the table.

But neither did he tell everyone he met to become a disciple. He didn't tell the beggars he healed, the prostitutes he forgave, the tax-collectors he ate with, to become his followers as payment for their cure, forgiveness, recognition. He didn't try to create a following; he tried to create students, to carry on the lesson, but he didn't tell people he helped that they now owed him something, or owed God something. Jesus never workd on the "I scratched your back, now you scratch mine" plan. Which is significant. He wasn't seeking to put things together. As The Last Whole Earth Catalog put it, 30 years ago: "We can't put it together. It is together." Jesus would agree. Which is why he told those two newbie disciples: "Go, and proclaim the kingdom of God." And this, he meant with his rebukes to them, is more important than anything else you can do, or will ever do.

And right after that, in Luke 10, Jesus sends out 72 disciples, and they come back rejoicing at what occurred, at what happened simply by proclaiming the Kingdom of God. And that's all they had to do, and that's all Jesus wanted them to do. And he didn't try to start a movement with them, or a group,or an ekklesia. In fact, he didn't tell them to come back for more instruction; he simply rejoiced in their happiness and told them to keep it up, that good things were coming of it already, universally good things. "I saw Satan fall, like lightning from heaven....Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but that your names are enrolled in heaven." (Luke 10:18, 20) All from saying the Kingdom of God is at hand, and caring for the people nobody cared for.

And those people were already part of a community: they were already the children of Abraham, the ones the prophets said Israel had forgotten to care for once before, and so Babylon came knocking on Jerusalem's gates. How quickly and easily we forget; and yet how simple the solution Jesus offers. And it is not the political solution some may have expected. He does not come as the Messiah who will re-establish the political throne of Israel. At this point I remember, not a Biblical passage (as I probably should), but a passage from "Jesus Christ Superstar," where Tim Rice pressed together most of the events of the Passion Week from the four Gospel sources. Passover, of course, was a huge political celebration for Israel, the cultic remembrance of the liberation of the slaves of Egypt so they could be a nation under God. In the rock opera, Simon Zealotes sings of the power Jesus could command in Jerusalem at Passover, if he only would, and Jesus replies, mournfully:

Neither you, Simon, nor the 50,000
Nor the Romans, nore the Jews,
Nor Judas nor the Twelve
Nor the priests, nor the scribes,
Nor doomed Jerusalem itself,
Understand what power is.
Understand what glory is.
Understand at all.
Understand at all.

And I think of left blogistan when I read another blog that considers itself a "community" that will eventually rise up and overthrow the corrupt political power structure, that will harness the power of the "netroots" and direct it as a force this time for good. Or when it warns its followers not to lose faith in the face of persecutions from David Brooks or The New Republic. In fact, it's laughable, because those are signs of doom, but not in the way the blog supporters think. Those are signs the blogs are being taken seriously; and they are signs the blogs are about to be co-opted.

Remember Paul? The modern-day take on Paul, among critics of Christianity, is that it all went wrong when Paul co-opted whatever one imagine Jesus of Nazareth started, and turned it into a church, a tamed, domesticated servant of the status quo. And certainly there is a great deal of ammunition for that view provided by the Pauline letters. Except that most of that ammunition comes from the Pseudo-Pauline letters, not the authenticated ones. That and the fact that, once again, the critics are dealing with these matters both ahistorically and anachronistically. But when the movement Paul fostered was finally taken seriously, did it transform society? Or did society transform it?

That's a larger question than can be legitimately answered here, and clearly the proper answer is not an either/or. But just as clearly, society transformed the church as much as the church transformed society. Look at the missions in San Antonio as a concrete example. And yet, the example is not an unmixed one. The missions offer masses for victims of AIDS/HIV; such persons are encouraged to contact a priest, and told they can do so anonymously. Their work is for the poor, the suffering; not the glory of the wealthy, the powerful. So one continues to affect the other, and yin and yang it goes along.

Jesus didn't need to found a church. But we do. This is the basic issue of ecclesiology: why do we need a church? And if we do, then what is church for? If it is to be another movement, another means of wielding power in the world, but this time to do good, then frankly I have no need of it. If it is to build community in the world, well...that's another trick altogether. And it's not a one-trick pony. Community is not built because people of like mind enjoy hanging around with each other. That is the fundamental weakness of Protestantism; witness it being played out, again, in the Anglican Communion. But that is also human nature; so pointing it out is not to say that community cannot, or should not, be built. Just be careful assuming you can aim it at anything.

Community is never the weapon it wishes to be. Pat Robertson is better known, richer, and has a larger audience, than Markos Moulitsas. But Pat Robertson has political clout only because Karl Rove courted it, and used it shamelessly and ruthlessly. The same is true for James Dobson and Jerry Falwell. I daresay, even this long after his heyday, that Jerry Falwell still commands a larger audience than Firedoglake, Kos, and Eschaton combined. And yet none of that prevented Karl Rove from playing him like a fiddle, or Ralph Reed from getting deeply involved in screwing over Indian tribes with Jack Abramoff. It is, in fact, in the nature of the business. Power corrupts, and absolutely no one is immune from that maxim. Not "greedy corporate masters," not pure-hearted denizens of the netroots.

If you seek community, that's one thing. If you seek power, that's another. Beware of confusing the two. Paul left us a church because we needed it: it is the preserver of tradition, of knowledge, of the historical presence of God, much as the nation of Israel was for each individual Hebrew, once upon a time. The church is the cloud of witnesses, the body of Christ, the community of believers. But what it is not, is a source of temporal or even secular power; it tried that, and learned the dangers of it (although it will undoubtedly try again and again; it is, after all, only human). There is also another thing it is not: it is not exclusive from the public square, something "purely personal" that only affects me as I live within the confines of my four walls, or stare out through the holes in my skull. It is the ekklesia, the people gathered in the public square for a not wholly public purpose. And to the extent that is a problem for the world: so be it.

Clouds Of Witness

Eight immigration courts line the fourth-floor hallway of the downtown Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building. On the walls: boot prints of ICE agents.

But on World Refugee Day, masked immigration agents weren’t leaning against the off-white walls, waiting to grab people. They scattered Friday after seeing a clergy delegation led by Bishop-elect Michael Pham.

“Like the story of Moses and Exodus, the Red Sea parted,” said observer Scott Reid of the immigrant-aiding San Diego Organizing Project.

Said another: “We’ve never seen the hallways cleared out so quickly.”

The result: Nobody was detained as immigration lawyers said would happen.

Two cases were heard Friday morning by Judge Catherine “Cate” Halliday-Roberts — a man whose case was continued and a woman whose case had been administratively closed for 20 years and reopened by the government.

Obviously another dangerous criminal.

What’s interesting is that the masked men flee in the presence of a bishop and other clergy.

Bishop Pham, himself a Vietnamese refugee as a child, said ICE agents were “standing there covered with masks as we walked toward the courtroom. Eventually the … agents kind of scattered and went away. No wonder people come in fear.”

Pham continued the mission of his predecessor, Cardinal Robert McElroy, also an outspoken advocate for immigrants before leaving to be archbishop of Washington, D.C.

Pham said a government lawyer struck up a chat in the restroom.

“He introduced himself to me,” Pham told reporters. “He feels conflicted with the situation. He knows his morals and his values.”

The Rev. Santorosa said masked ICE agents were an intimidating presence despite the fact the federal court staff was “very accommodating.”

Immigrants, he said, “came with great fear and trepidation.”

The Rev. Manny Del Rio — of St. John of the Cross in Lemon Grove — echoed others: “It was evident that our presence made a difference. … This was one of the last peaceful times in a long time” with no immigrants being detained.

Besides 10 clergy members and the press, at least a dozen activists (including one not attached to a group but calling herself a “rogue Catholic”), assembled outside the building and handed out sheets in English and Spanish titled “KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: ICE ARRESTS AT IMMIGRATION COURTHOUSES.”

Under “WHAT TO DO IF ARRESTED,” was this advice: “If you fear returning to your home country — say it clearly and out loud to the ICE officers (and) request a credible fear interview.”

I’m actually surprised ICE didn’t go outside the building to charge someone with obstruction.

Interesting, too, I was just reading this post from nearly 20 (!) years ago. One of my concerns there was the idea of the ekklesia, specifically: what is its place in the public square?

The church is the cloud of witnesses, the body of Christ, the community of believers. But what it is not, is a source of temporal or even secular power; it tried that, and learned the dangers of it (although it will undoubtedly try again and again; it is, after all, only human). There is also another thing it is not: it is not exclusive from the public square, something "purely personal" that only affects me as I live within the confines of my four walls, or stare out through the holes in my skull. It is the ekklesia, the people gathered in the public square for a not wholly public purpose. And to the extent that is a problem for the world: so be it.

This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I wrote those words 19 years ago. But the story is a dramatic example of the clouds of witness. That’s what drove those ICE agents away. The witness. Maybe they didn’t want to be seen harassing clergy. But that’s because clergy are a very public part of the clouds of witness; for all the saints. It can be a dangerous witness. After all, Christians believe the world killed God himself. Still, the ekklesia is the people gathered in the public square for a not wholly public purpose. And to the extent that is a problem for the world: so be it.

God Bless the Child

My first pass at this got ridiculously long, and was rather ridiculously knee-jerk, too (even as I kept revising it). The more I review this, the less bothered I am by it. In part because this is what churches do (i.e., "threaten 'consequences for the full participation of the Church in the life of the Communion.' " It is all about boundaries, after all.) In part I'm relaxing my stridency because these documents clearly identify a problem which will not clearly be resolved. Some churches sincerely despise homosexuals, and in fact think they should be treated as criminals. Some churches sincerely accept homosexuals as children of God.

What you gonna do with folks like that?

Ekklesia has yet another take on this (each one is valuable, in its way), which is a bit more help:

The Episcopal Church was faced with further criticism (demanded by the majority in the Global South) for the actions of its constituent parts in blessing gay partnerships, and told to express further regret for the impact of this at all levels. But in the small print there was also acknowledgment of “proper constitutional autonomy”, recognition of the need for further work on principles for interpreting scripture, disapproval for those taking unauthorised oversight measures, and a call to end legal action over property disputes.

Calls because, as I said, the Primates don't really have any power of enforcement, especially over Archbishops. The draft Covenant doesn't change that situation, and clearly, if it did, it wouldn't have even a prayer of acceptance by the Communion ("them that's got shall get, them that's not shall lose, so the Bible says, and it still is news...."). Do you honestly think we're going to make Bishops subject to oversight authority? Nor should we, of course. I agree with the Mad Priest; this is a matter of ecclesiology, not legislation.

Again, Ekklesia seems to have a good view of the matter:

What will seem to many a convoluted and exhaustive process is aimed by its proponents at re-building trust and consensus in a badly fractured church. “Confidence-building rather than confrontation” was how one observer described it to Ekklesia. Less charitable commentators are talking about “ongoing squabbles rather than schism”.

Which is the best we can hope for in these situations. Putting together the scant evidence I have, i think there is a discernable pattern here. Somewhere (perhaps in the NYT interview with PB Schori) I read that the meetings of the Primates are only about 30 years old. This may, or may not, at least roughly correspond to the beginning of attempts, or even the actual decision, to ordain women in TEC. If there is even a casual connection there, then this is just more of the iceberg we are seeing; and these tensions are inevitable as either God does a new thing, or the center of gravity of Christianity shifts to the "Global South."

Oh, and if you still think I'm exaggerating the effect of PB Schori's gender, I found this in my archives. And then there's this, on the subjects of theology, ecclesiology, women, homsexuals, and "building up the church." I'd dig up some more, if I could just stumble across the right keywords.

So, it's not just us....

Start with news of the world and the ekklesia:

To understand the crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, visit the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Issy-Les-Moulineaux outside Paris.

The vast 100-year-old structure, built on the ruins of a 17th-century chateau, contains vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows and hundreds of rooms. Pope John Paul II visited here in 1980 on a trip in which he chastised the French for abandoning the church.

But the seminary's corridors are dark, the individual living quarters largely empty. Only 52 seminarians are studying this year, a decrease of 50 percent from a decade ago. Many of them come from as far away as Vietnam and Rwanda.

When I entered Eden Seminary, in St. Louis, before classes started the new students held a weekend retreat at Kenrick Seminary. Well, it had been a seminary, for Catholic priests. Despite the fact that St. Louis, as the RC priest who taught us Pastoral Care said with a smile, had "more Catholics than you can shake a stick at," the Seminary had long ago converted to a retreat center.

The building was built to house about 200 men, and house them comfortably. The cells were small, but the hallways were huge, long and wide. It's no exaggeration to say I could have driven my MG Midget down those halls, and turned it around at either end to go back. There were classrooms, a chapel, kitchen and dining room; it was completely self-contained, under one roof. In fact, there were two groups using it that weekend, and we never ran into each other. It was, of course, almost completely empty.

If the requirements for the priesthood were as high for many Protestant denominations, those churches would have the same problems described in this article (many do, anyway). Most Protestant seminarians now are married, probably retired, or on a second career. Eden Seminary was built originally to house single men. It was still adjusting to families with children from near-college age to nearly new-born when I was there. And some of the professors were still used to dealing with young college graduates, not people changing career in mid-life. But that's another story, and only fits in here as an example of the changes society is forcing on the churches worldwide.

Perhaps it is because the world is finally more attractive than the church, that this question of competition arises. Ekklesia meant those called out of the world, gathered together out of the marketplace, literally. Maybe the marketplace is just a more comfortable place to stay than it was before. In earlier ages the world offered little in the way of advancement or even placement, and the church took in many who were simply willing to do the work. The notion of "calling" didn't gel until Martin Luther was forced to form his own church rather than allowed to reform the only church he knew. Where once the church filled a cultural niche, either as a secure employer or as a source of some social status, it has fallen now not only in the wake of the ebb of the post war boom, but more deeply, in the backwash of the Enlightenment.

That, at least, is the usual diagnosis. A.N. Wilson's God's Funeral popularized that idea a few years ago, and it's become the reigning explanation for the decline of the church in Europe. But things are seldom as simple as that. I was struck by this passage in the New York Times article:

Only 21 percent of Europeans say that religion is "very important" to them, according to the often-cited European Values Study, conducted in 1999 and 2000 and published two years ago. A similar survey in the United States by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life put the number at nearly 60 percent.

The trend away from regular participation has been so noticeable that it has even been given a name: European apostasy.

"European Catholics are not against the Catholic Church," said Ulrich Ruh, editor of the Catholic monthly Herder-Korrespondenz, based in Freiburg, Germany. "They go to church at least once or twice a year and bring their children to be baptized and confirmed. Rather, they have made their own personal arrangements with the church and do not want to be disturbed. They do not want to be evangelized. That is why the pope failed to make the church more attractive."

Part of the problem is the church's emphasis on punishment and sin rather than on inclusion and community.

The first two paragraphs sound like the Europe I "know" from anecdotal evidence and work like Wilson's. That's the Europe of the intelligentsia, the Europe that has turned away from notions like "faith." But the second two paragraphs indicate that is not the whole picture, any more than Pat Robertson or Robert Schuller, or even Jesse Jackson, speak for all American Christians.

And perhaps there is a philosophical bias here, as well. Wilson is British, schooled at one level or another in the Anglo-American philosophies of empricism and positivism. The "analytical" school of philosophy is almost exclusively Anglo-American, and distinguished from the "Continental" schools, which are largely variations of phenomenology, and largely thought of as "French:" Derrida, Levinas. Or perhaps still rooted in German Idealism, as with Heidegger. But then I reflect that Derrida, a Jew by birth, was a Professor of Religious Studies and wrote so many works on religion that he was credited with trying to create a "negative atheology," a decidedly Christian pursuit. And how work in philosophy of religion is a thriving enterprise in Europe (at least in philosophical circles), whereas in this country, as Palle Yourgrau points out, one cannot afford to have even the taint of "piety" among the analytical philosophers. Yourgrau tells the story of Charles Parsons, a philosopher and logician at Harvard, who in 1955 was being interviewed for membership into the Society of Fellows. He made the mistake of mentioning that he had read theology and found Pascal interesting, though he was not a Christian. This prompted W.V.O. Quine to murmur "Good grief, Parsons is pious." (Palle Yourgrau, A World Without Time, New York: Basic Books 2005, pp. 155-156) So the two schools are divided on several levels, not the least of which is the suspicion and distrust of religion widely held by the analytical school. Small wonder any work in religion is being done on "the Continent."

So what is "the problem"? Is it as simple as the Enlightenment slowly but surely sweeping away "superstition"? Or is the problem institutional? Is the church, in other words, the problem?

Grant that thy Church may be delivered from traditions which have lost their life, from usage which has lost its spirit, from institutions which no longer give life and power to their generation; that the Church may ever shine as a light in the world and be as a city set on a hill.

HEAR OUR PRAYER, O LORD.

In the Hymnal for the Evangelical and Reformed Church, that is part of the prayer for Church Anniversary. It's a good prayer, because it reminds the church that sometimes, the institition is not the answer. And that the answer is never simple, and it comes from the future. Now, of course, as Alfred North Whitehead said, "It is the business of the future to be dangerous." And institutions despise risk; just as most people do. But that's the proclamation of the church, too: that there is no risk anymore, that in Christ all things have been done that need to be done.

Which gets us back to the theological problems. Like, for example, Central America. The "health and wealth" gospel, which is a theology, is taking countries by storm there; and the only valid response to it I know of, the soundest critique possible, is a good offense. That offense would come in the form of liberation theology. It speaks to the same concerns, but in a wholly different way. There are, in other words, theological, as well as spiritual, answers. And I still have no reason to believe people are not fundamentally spiritual; not culturally, but fundamentally. And I have no reason not to offer the closing words of that prayer for Church Anniversary, because they are true, and can be trusted:

O eternal God, who didst send thy Holy Spirit upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost, we pray that as thou didst strengthen their hearts with daring and fortitude, so thou wouldst confinn in us their faithful labors, their high vision, their holy purpose. Grant us so to live, that the generations to come may find their memorial not alone in graven tablets, but may read it in the living record of an active faith, an unswerving loyalty to truth, a self-forgetting service of mankind. Be this the gift of thy grace bestowed upon us; be this the memorial of the just, transmitted to their children's children through the long centuries to come: and thine shall be the kingdom and the power and the glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end.

AMEN

"In the midst of life, we are in death"

I have no idea whether Mr. Cahill is right about the situation in the Catholic church, or not, but it doesn't seem likely that church would be immune to the forces working on the Protestant churches. In any case, his analysis is interesting on the point (as for his larger his point about the significance of John Paul II, I literally have no basis for an opinion).

The situation is dire. Anyone can walk into a Catholic church on a Sunday and see pews, once filled to bursting, now sparsely populated with gray heads. And there is no other solution for the church but to begin again, as if it were the church of the catacombs, an oddball minority sect in a world of casual cruelty and unbending empire that gathered adherents because it was so unlike the surrounding society.

Back then, the church called itself by the Greek word ekklesia, the word the Athenians used for their wide open assembly, the world's first participatory democracy. (The Apostle Peter, to whom the Vatican awards the title of first pope, was one of many leaders in the primitive church, as far from an absolute monarch as could be, a man whose most salient characteristic was his frequent and humble confession that he was wrong.) In using ekklesia to describe their church, the early Christians meant to emphasize that their society within a society acted not out of political power but only out of the power of love, love for all as equal children of God. But they went much further than the Athenians, for they permitted no restrictions on participation: no citizens and noncitizens, no Greeks and non-Greeks, no patriarchs and submissive females. For, as St. Paul put it repeatedly, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; for all are one in Christ Jesus."

Churches, of course, are not immune to the culture they find themselves in. Churches are thriving in Africa and Latin America, even as their counterparts wither in Europe and North America. The reasons for this are complex, and not to be reduced to simple statements. However, Mr. Cahill is right: the church in Europe, in North America, must become the church of the marginalized again. Not necessarily the church of the catacombs that is oppressed by society, but the church of those society regards as dead-in-life. "Catacombs" has become a metaphor for the church-in-hiding. It should become the symbol for those who are "invisible," whose deaths, as well as lives, mean nothing to the rest of the world.

Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

 

The pastor's sermon referenced this line*, and talked of our fears and god's place in our lives. My own fear's can create what I perceive as more darkness. But it's not real, and even when it is real god has made a promise. These Mom's for Liberty, the conservative state senators and house members (the head of the house had an angry outburst when the bill failed) are turning children into their own darkness. I don't know how you even reach them, this isn't even anymore about a particular issue, but about a state of fear and finding more to fear. 

Dear god, relieve me of my fears. Stop me from finding more to fear.

And all the people say:  "Amen."

The title to this post comes from Genesis 4, when Adam and Eve conceive two sons:

And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.

2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

6 And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

9 And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.

11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;

12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

13 And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

15 And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

16 And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 

I know, it's the KJV, which we're all supposed to hate, but I hate it less than other versions readily available on-line, and I'm not doing a deep exegesis of the scriptures so I'm not that worried about the translation.  It's the gist that matters, and we have that here.  Besides, I have a fondness for Early Modern English.  This is the stuff that taught you to speak (and think) the way that you do; show a little respect, punks!

And I carried it through to v. 16 because the KJV is a literary treasure, and the reference to "east of Eden" is, thanks to Steinbeck, a literary one, too.  But the gist is Cain's murder of his brother.  And it's very interesting to pay close attention to the story, because Cain is mad at God and jealous of Abel, because God accepts Abel's animal sacrifice but not Cain's grain sacrifice (equally intersting because by Deuteronomy the Israelites are directed to bring the first fruits of the harvest to God as an offering; a passage I've used often for Thanksgiving.)  Still, Cain is none too happy, so he takes his wrath out on Abel.  I'm an older brother with a younger brother, and I get that.  There were times in my youth I resented the presence, or successes, of my brother, starting with him coming home from the hospital.  My parents loved to tell the tale of me coming into my mother's presence a few days after that and asking:  "Mommy, when is that baby's daddy going to come take him home?"  It got better from there, but I'm honest enough to say he's always been a better brother to me than I have to him.  So I get where Cain is coming from, if I don't condone his actions.

But v. 7 causes me to pause a moment, because the notion of action, deeds, behavior, is already here; and it's not a complicated one:

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

Granted that's not exactly plain guidance and a clear set of guiderails, but the intent is fairly clear (as clear as God can be said to be, human beings being what they are.  I can only imagine the Midrash on this verse.).  Do well, and you will be accepted.  And as it comes to pass, murdering your brother is not "doing well."**

Cain's answer to God's question is a famous one, and I hardly hope to provide the definitive interpretation of it.  But I think, just as God tells Cain to "do well" and so be accepted (by God?  by society?  by family?  It is ambiguous, isn't it?), I think Cain's question is a cri du couer to which the only answer can be:  "Yes."

But now what does that affirmative entail?

I don't know how you even reach them, this isn't even anymore about a particular issue, but about a state of fear and finding more to fear. 

Are we obliged to reach the Moms for Liberty who so fear the otherness of others? As citizens of a democracy, no.  No more than we are obliged to re-educate the racists and bigots and white supremacists among us.  You can't, after all, fix stupid.  And our prison systems long ago gave up on "reform" for prisoners (more's the pity, but that, too, was a democratic decision). But as Christians?  Are we our brothers', and sisters', keepers?

Yes. With provisos.

Matthew comes closest to giving us guidance here, so let's start there:

And if some companion does wrong, go have it out between the two of you privately.  If that person listens to you, you have won your companion over.  And if he or she doesn't listen, take one or two people with you so that 'every fact may be supported by two or three witnesses.' [a reference to Deuteronomy 19:15]  Then if he or she refuses to listen to them, report it to the congregation.  If he or she refuses to listen even to the congregation, treat that companion as you would a pagan or a toll collector. I swear to you whatever you release on earth will be considered released in heaven.  Again I assure you, if two of you on earth agree on anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.  In fact, wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, I will be there among them.

Matthew 18:15-20, SV

I finished that with v. 20 because it provides the needed "stinger" of Christian humility to it.  No doubt the Moms for Liberty think they have agreed on something to ask for, and that God has given it to them.  But then we feel the same way, don't we?  And they are two or three gathered in Jesus' name; but then so are we, aren't we?

Well, two or three of us, reading this, anyway, have probably gathered in Jesus' name.  Close enough is clearly good enough.  Jesus clearly wasn't concerned with competition between congregations for who had the fullest pews, and the largest number of pews to fill.

Which also points back to this passage from Matthew's Sermon on the Mount: it's about the ekklesia, the church, the body of the faithful. Yes, and in one sense it's just that restrictive:  who do you disagree with so strongly, except a member of the ekklesia?  And how to you treat them finally as a pagan, or a toll collector, if there is no group to stand behind you and against... them?  But that raises a question for the Moms for Liberty:  who do they speak for?  and why is their group in control (if it is)?  If, as Jesus says in v. 20, wherever two or more are together in his name he is there, too, that means Jesus is in a lot of places you (or I, or the Moms for Liberty) don't want to be, among people we don't even want to associate with.

Now who's in charge?  Now who is my brother's keeper?  And who is my brother (or sister)?  And what does being a "keeper" mean, anyway?

I've been the pastor of churches where people were quite sure Jesus was on their side, but not mine.  I've been next door to churches (as a pastor) who were quite convinced Jesus was with them, and not me and my congregation (I could have thrown a rock from my church and hit the church next to it, but that pastor never so much as called me to welcome me to the neighborhood, and several pastors I knew in the area said he never would, because they were MO Synod Lutheran, and so "holier than thou."  I should have called on him anyway, but frankly I had my own problems and didn't need to add to them with a bad experience at another church door (I already had a church member demanding I bar another member from entering our church building.  He had the power in the congregation to enforce his demands, and was one of the reasons I left as soon as I could.).  Probably I should have, as an act of Christian charity and humility.  I accept that criticism; I make it myself.

But so it goes.

What responsibility, then, do we have for the Moms for Liberty (to give "them" a name and something of an identity)?  Perhaps it is the responsibility to not be afraid:

My own fear's can create what I perceive as more darkness. But it's not real, and even when it is real god has made a promise. These Mom's for Liberty, the conservative state senators and house members (the head of the house had an angry outburst when the bill failed) are turning children into their own darkness. I don't know how you even reach them, this isn't even anymore about a particular issue, but about a state of fear and finding more to fear. 

Your own darkness is all you can take responsibility for, because it is all you can truly struggle with.  You can't struggle with other people's darkness, because they can't struggle with yours.  Pointing out the splinter in your sister's eye is ignoring the log in yours.  After all, the splinter you see is just a reflection of that log.  You can only worry about your problems; you can't fix theirs.

But you can't kill 'em, either.  That's the lesson from Cain's story.  You are your brother's keeper to the extent you want to control your brother; and murder is the ultimate act of control.  I can take your life. I can make you die, while I live.  What greater control is there than that?  Expand it a thousand times, a million times, with the power of the modern tyrant (Hitler; Stalin; Pol Pot), it is just multiplying the original sin of murder.  It is that sin which is still the root problem.  So in that sense, yes, you are your brother's keeper.  But are you the keeper of his soul, or his fear?

No.  Your sister or brother keeps their own soul, their own fear.  And you can help, but you cannot be responsible for their decisions.  Which is not to say you cannot be responsible for your decisions, either.  Their fear need not be your fear.  Fear is a contagion; but you can inoculate yourself against it, and teach others to do the same.  Teach, but not control.

I was at a school board meeting last night because the Lovely Wife is retiring, and she and all the retirees this year were being honored.  They also honored speech and debate students in the district who had won state honors.  Three teachers from three high schools presented their students, the last proudly announcing she was the teacher of the other two teachers on stage that night.  I mention it because she spoke so clearly and eloquently on the stage it was a breath of fresh air after the two teachers who announced their students and their accomplishments in voices so rushed and muddled it was impossible to tell what they were saying into the microphones.  The last teacher, the teacher of teachers, spoke clearly.  The contrast couldn't have been greater.  You can teach; but you can't control.  The responsibility ultimately lies with your brother or sister.  What you are responsible for, like Cain, is your own actions and emotions.

So what do we do about the Moms for Liberty?  We oppose their political positions, because this is a democracy, and that's how democracies function.  We oppose, but we do not seek control; that's their failure.  We do not replace our fear (of fascism; of tyranny; of extremism) with their fear.  In that sense we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers: we keep ourselves within our limits and responsibilities, and expect them to do the same.  And when they don't, society provides the corrective, even to treating them like pagans and toll collectors; if it comes to that. 

But we also recognize them as children of the living God, a God who loves them as much as God loves us.  Aye, there's the rub.  We are their keepers only inasmuch as we keep ourselves, and treat them as brothers and sisters.  How they treat us is not within our control; nor should it be, because then we'd be within theirs.  Aye, there's the rub, again. We have a responsibility to treat them as we would be treated, and to love them as God loves us.  But we are not responsible for their fears and nightmares; we are only responsible for not trying to feed them, and for not judging our sisters and brothers for them.  After all, the worst we see in them is just the reflection of the worst we have in us.  That we can work on; the rest, we have to work with.

May all the people say: "Amen."

*Even though I walk

through the darkest valley,[a]

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me. 

**This story has inspired at least two contemporary takes on it.  One is a movie, "He Never Died," in which the protagonist turns out to be Cain, who is immortal and eternal, i.e., he can't be killed.  An interesting interpretation of the curse in v. 15.  And the brothers appear in the Netflix version of "Sandman" (true to the comics?  I've no idea.), where Cain repeatedly and frequently kills Abel, who just comes back to life out of the grave, rather stoically and forgiving of his older brother.  Which is an interesting commentary on brothers, indeed.

What Is Church For?

"Prophet" Jeff Jansen says that Jesus was a real man and complains that the church today has become "almost homosexual." At his church, Jansen bragged, the ushers all carry guns and won't hesitate to kill you if you try to start something: "Just kill 'em. Just shoot 'em dead." pic.twitter.com/9eCXdztT5I

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) April 10, 2021

I read an article somewhere (Google found it for me; not among my usual haunts) where a pastor tried to give insight into what's causing the decline in church attendance (lowest Gallup has ever recorded, but Gallup hasn't been polling the question ever since 1776, so large amounts of salt should be kept on hand).  Some of those were familiar, especially since we were introduced to the issue in seminary where it was already old news (late in the last century, for me):  sociological matters, like the decline of unions in America, decline of team activities (one book title I vividly remember was Bowling Alone), etc.  One of the complaints the pastor had was the yin-yang of American Christianity:  on the one hand, the ardent evangelicals and even more ardent pentecostals; on the other, the earnest do-gooder "liberal" Christians.  The former, he said, were sanctimonious but also interested mostly in power (look at their devotion to Trump); the latter, he opined, were so interested in social justice they ran religion right out of their churches.

Well, the UCC has been labeled "Unitarians Considering Christ," but that's not as true as it appears to be.  It's more a description of Cleveland (where the church is headquartered) than of the congregations of the church.  But still, the perception is the problem; but not the only problem.  The base problem is the vocabulary of American Christianity, the narrative we tell about it.  And that narrative allows for only two sides (like the two political parties, one conservative, one liberal), and the default setting, the baseline, is "conservative."  So we can only speak of Christianity in America as evangelicalism, or what isn't evangelical.  The evangelical side is always too insistent on it being the only "true" version (that's the narrative, I mean; not necessarily the reality) and the "liberal" side is always portrayed as:  not conservative enough.  Sure, we like Jesus better when he's nice rather than judgemental ("Jesus loves me, but he can't stand you" is a sure-fire caricature of fundamentalism), but we don't want Jesus to lead us to be too concerned with what mascots sports teams have (an issue for the UCC in Cleveland; still).

You can pick "extreme" examples (and how you define "extreme" defines you, as well) for either side, but there can be only two sides.  The conservative side is doing something right: witness their large, well attended churches.  Well, not so much now, but....  And the liberal side is clearly doing something wrong, because, well...no large, well attended churches.  Except for the ones where the pastor is too crazy for anybody to take seriously, as with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, late of the UCC church Barack Obama famously attended (I would say more about his "attendance," but that would be a distraction; and probably very un-pastoral of me.).  Everybody agrees Jeremiah Wright was too "extreme" to be a pastor deserving of any regard at all; well, everybody except the UCC pastors I knew, but again, that's another story.  Rev. Wright's church was large enough to be considered a "mega-church."  Still, it doesn't count.  

But what do we have between these two?  Church as country club/social gathering?  That’s not far off the house churches of Paul, except those were family affairs: literally.  One of the problems with church today, as the pastor properly noted, is that life together is messy; and life on-line, by contrast, is clean.  You can ignore this blog if you like, or whole sections to Twitter.  You can watch only the TV shows you like, too; watch only the movies you want to watch.  You don’t have to voluntarily associate with people so different from you.  That is something you have to do in church.  That’s why some portion of the congregation, of the church, always hates the pastor, whoever the pastor is.

Church is also a snake pit of vituperation and power struggles.  Can be; usually is.  If you’re not aware of it, you’re not plugged into the people complaining about the new pastor, or the new carpet, or the new organist, or the hymns used in worship, or the way worship is conducted, or....  There’s always a group complaining, always people leaving and others coming back and new people leaving and returning,.  This is as true for large churches as for “family” congregations.  The terms are ecclesiastical, not arbitrary; but I don’t bother to define them (the scale is size of membership) here.  You get the idea.  Church is another struggle to have, and the world offers so many ways to avoid struggle.  Watch TV you want to watch, or movies (streaming; or purchase).  Read news/ideas you want to read, ignore the rest. Chat on-line with people who think like you do; ignore the rest.  Church involves rubbing elbows with people who may drive you crazy, and it’s completely voluntary.  You may not like everyone at work, but the rewards usually compensate for that.What does church provide?  How does it compensate you?

This is, understandably, one sided.  But the decline in attendance is not really due to “liberal” or “conservative” thinking.  Sure, Trump is a repellant figure.  But Asa Hutchison only vetoed one bill in Arkansas of three that address a problem Arkansas doesn’t have:  what to do about trans students.  The message to Millenials is clear:  some people we care about, some people are, well, less than human.  Yes, that’s as American as cherry pie (Columbus made slaves of the natives here as soon as he landed), but Millenials find it reprehensible.  And while bans on trans kids in sports (I’m simplifying here to make a point) is not necessarily religious in basis, the whole “offense” of the trans is easily linked to “conservative” Christianity.  Which is not to say “liberal” Christians win this one; this isn’t an either/or situation.  People don’t ping-pong between the two poles of American Christian churches:  they just bow out, or never come in the first place.

We’re back to a question I asked a long time ago:  what is church for?  Is it for supporting and buttressing “conservative” social principles like “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”?  Or not letting Eve become Steve? (If my shorthand here offends, forgive.  Again, I’m trying to make a quick point, not solve a complex problem.) Is it for conducting workshops on “consciousness raising” and finding new sources of injustice before we have solutions for the old injustices? And is God in the solutions? Or in the greater awareness of the problem, and the seemingly endless discovery of new problems?

I keep coming back to this issue because it remains evergreen, prompted to life once again by some new poll that re-states the obvious to all but the media narrative (where we are all still in the post-war (WWII) church boom in "Middle America", still donning our white gloves and our best suits and driving our 2.5 children to a white (building and people) suburban church with a pristine green lawn).  As I say, we were studying the decline in church attendance (and so, growth) when I was in seminary, and that was at the end of the last century (20 years ago is a long time if your my not-yet-30 year old daughter, or no time at all if you're staring at 66 just over the horizon).  The post-war period saw a boom in church attendance that distorted all expectations about churches in America.  That was the aberration, not the norm; but Boomers, especially, took it as normative.  Of course, Boomers also fled the church in droves to pursue gurus from India and religions from Asia, anything that didn't smack of American Christianity at all.  And then we flocked back to church when our children were born, only to abandon it again as soccer games on Sunday mornings became an accepted part of the weekly schedule because it was the only day left in what becamse a jammed schedule for our children (my childhood was relatively unstructured, but then it was lived in post-war suburban America where every adult was roughly the same age, and all had children of roughly the same ages.  Those days are long gone.  Organized games and other activities are the only way to get children away from the TV.  There's almost no one out on the street playing games anymore.)  So if society has changed radically (again) since Boomers were kids, why hasn't church changd with it?

I used to wonder why my church couldn't offer worship on days other than Sunday, and at times other than Sunday morning.  I was looking for ways to bring in people whose lives were busy, but church had become just one more thing to do, and it was voluntary, and the social pressure of being seen there had evaporated.  Worship at any other hour on any other day was not really a solution to that problem.  Besides, "we've always done it this way" is the lead weight around the ankle of many a church.  Which is not to say the alternatives are any better.  Aside from churches that are built around one leader who is revealed to have abused his/her position (more likely men than women, when the abuse is personal rather than financial.  Why is that, do you suppose?), there's just the fact that "mega-churches" thrive so long as they are advertising and bringing people in.  The rule of thumb is, they lose as many people as they bring in new, so the congregation appears to be in a "steady state."  (These losses are permanent. More traditional congregations just see who attends shift with the new pastor; mega-churches never form that kind of community, as they focus almost solely on the pastor.) But that's the problem with judging the health of congregations and churches solely by numbers.  What appears on paper is not necessarily what appears in the pews, and one of the prime purposes of churches is to provide an ekklesia, (yeah, I've written a lot on this topic), a Greek word used in the Gospels that, according to the authority on New Testament Greek, is "a popular meeting," meaning it is "called out."  "Called out" here simply means "announced," and "popular" means people want to attend.  Ekklesia is the word used for gatherings of Christians in the New Testament, so church should be something people want to attend, a popular meeting. But popularity is a rather simplistic measure, especially these days when it means how many people paid to see the movie, watch the streaming series, or downloaded the song/album.

I saw this morning on the freeway a new billboard for the "mega-church" Baptist church here in town.  They have at least two campuses, so I think that's what this was advertising:  "I & II Houstonians," and the smiling, familiar visage of the senior pastor who has been in that position longer than I've been living in Houston (going on 22 years now, if I calculate correctly).  Nothing wrong with pastors staying put in churches, but it does create a certain cult of personality, even in the smallest church.  His job, from what I've heard, was explicitly to grow that church, and he has.  But advertising is a huge part of that effort, and I do wonder how much of a community that church has, and how much is just churning, as people come in the front door while others slip out the back.  If they aren't keeping up with their losses anymore, does that mean churches are in historic decline?  Or does it just mean the charm of "New and Improved!" has finally worn off?

Christian author renounces his faith in emotional video: 'I love myself for the first time' https://t.co/7ga2XuOSaY

— Raw Story (@RawStory) April 13, 2021

I'd say the Christianity he walked away from is one I walked away from, too.  Except I never subscribed to what I presume his Christianity was.  I say that only because he taught at Moody Bible Institute and because his book (according to Amazon) is about a rather extreme and perverted form of Calvinism championed by institutions like Moody Bible Institute.  I’m familiar with it; but I never confused it with Christianity as a whole; just as one interpretation among others. Still, this is not another datum proving the problem of Christianity in America is right v left. This is just the story of a person setting aside what I am so bold as to call false doctrine. I’m not too keen on any system that is just a system of control (in my childhood that was described as the "Thou Shalt Nots", and it was already fading in my Calvinist (Presbyterian) upbringing).  Where is the joy in life that Jesus exemplified, in being afraid of being alive?  Anyone who loves themselves for the first time (good for them!) by giving up Christianity, was not doing Christianity right.  And I don't mean by that to blame this man for not being Calvinistic enough.  I mean the Christianity he was taught was false doctrine.  Period.

So maybe that's the problem with Christianity in America.  It's the conclusion I come back to, time and again.  There are perversions of the teachings of Calvin and Luther and Augustine and Aquinas and Paul and Jesus of Nazareth out there; and they all go under the guise of "Christianity."  But complaining about that on the intertoobs is like complaining about the CDC pausing the distribution of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine because not enough people have had rare blood clots to justify such a pause.  A)  not up to you to make the decision; B) you don't know what you're talking about, and C) nobody really cares what you think anyway.  So rather than add to the chatter, wouldn't it be better to help with the solution?

But the problem, the end, is not theology; the problem is ecclesiology, and the central question of ecclesiology is:  what is church for?  Only human beings can answer that question, and if the answer doesn't arise from their individual lives, it won't arise at all.  Perhaps we are in an interregnum.  Perhaps we are at the end of a very long road.  I think it is both, and a little bit of neither.  The Romans, I understand, used to build cities precisely so many miles (or however the Romans measured space) from a previous city.  As the new city grew, at some point another, farther away, was established.  They were all connected by roadways, all planned as to where they would be, all subject to the central authority of Rome.  The comparison to the Roman church, to the central control of churches which some Protestant denominations also have, is not accidental.  The other model is less structural, and in the extremes of Congregationalism (or most Baptist denominations, which are largely congregational in polity), very loosely connected indeed.  At the far end of that are the mega-churches that claim no denominational fealty.  All have, in their time, served people; all have come up in a culture which supported them, and if it does no longer, they will wither away.  Will they be replaced?  Yeah, I think so.  

There is a theological issue here, still.  More accurately, a soteriological one.  Good works was once a touchstone of Christianity, but for a number of reasons it was set aside (kinda, sorta) by the Reformation.  Too soon it became associated with "Popish" ideas, because anything Roman Catholic became anathema to Protestants.  To this day, as I mentioned above, the emphasis on helping people as Christians can be seen as squeezing God out of the church (because good works do not assure salvation, and isn't the point of being a Christian salvation?).

We just can't imagine what the replacement will be, yet.  It will depend on the ecclesia; the calling out to a popular gathering. To return to the question:  what is church for?  It is for people, ultimately.  It always has been.  It has to be.  Who else, after all, would it be for?  God?

The More Things Change....

Evangelical pastor warns people are taking QAnon as a religion: We're no match for '24 hours of Facebook'https://t.co/E2rChAPuZX

— Raw Story (@RawStory) June 2, 2021

Yes, I've mentioned that already; now let's add this into the mix:

Utah reporter says politics are driving Mormons now — not their faith https://t.co/5rQEiJJZ92

— Raw Story (@RawStory) June 3, 2021

"In Utah, it turns out, the numbers are almost exactly the same, according to a recent Y2 Analytics poll that found 46.5 percent of LDS voters in Utah believe that the election was rife with fraud and the outcome is illegitimate, compared to about a third of non-members," wrote Gehrke. "And while it might be tempting to assume there is some correlation between religion and doubting the election outcome, it takes a back seat to partisan identity when it comes to buying into what has been dubbed Trump's 'Big Lie.'"

Before Trump's "Big Lie" there was good old fashioned American racism as the topic du jour of my childhood.  I'm old enough to remember when Mormons thought blacks bore the "mark of Cain," and when most white churches were not that enamored of Dr. King and the civil rights movement.  Dr. King wasn't too crazy about them, either:

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.

It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."

And we shouldn't forget how he addressed that letter:

16 April 1963

My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

Of course, that was then, and this is now:

Y2 Analytics founding partner Quin Monson explained that it indicates partisan identities are driving people's views more than their religious beliefs now.

Tell me again how much things have changed. 

Making graven images

I dunno; looks like a graven image to me....

Roy Moore loves the Ten Commandments; and it has been noted more than once, even by your humble host, that it's curious he's not more enamored of the Beatitudes.  But since he seems to be more interested in the Hebrew Scriptures (Moore would call them the "Old Testament"), it's odd he's not more interested in Deuteronomy, somewhere just past the "Ten Commandments" passage:

These shall stand upon mount Gerizim to bless the people, when ye are come over Jordan; Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Joseph, and Benjamin:
13 And these shall stand upon mount Ebal to curse; Reuben, Gad, and Asher, and Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.
14 And the Levites shall speak, and say unto all the men of Israel with a loud voice,
15 Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image, an abomination unto the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and putteth it in a secret place. And all the people shall answer and say, Amen.
16 Cursed be he that setteth light by his father or his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.
17 Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen.
18 Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way. And all the people shall say, Amen.
19 Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the stranger, fatherless, and widow. And all the people shall say, Amen.
20 Cursed be he that lieth with his father’s wife; because he uncovereth his father’s skirt. And all the people shall say, Amen.
21 Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast. And all the people shall say, Amen.
22 Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.
23 Cursed be he that lieth with his mother in law. And all the people shall say, Amen.
24 Cursed be he that smiteth his neighbour secretly. And all the people shall say, Amen.
25 Cursed be he that taketh reward to slay an innocent person. And all the people shall say, Amen.
26 Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen

Deuteronomy 27:13-26.

There are some curses there he could surely get behind, like the curse against bestiality, or lying with your father's wife (not the Oedipal crime, mind you, in a society where a man might have many wives).  Note that "crime" is against the father, not the wife; but there is a protection against lying with your own sister (incest) or what we today would call half-brothers or sisters (or even step-brothers, as the law provided for widows to become the wives of brothers of the deceased husband).  It's verses 18 and 19 I'm particularly interested in, though, because those are the concerns least likely to be raised by someone like Roy Moore.  This is the KJV; since I don't read Hebrew, I looked at the Revised English Bible for a bit more clarity:

'A curse on anyone who misdirects a blind man'; the people must all say, 'Amen.'

'A curse on anyone who withholds justice from the alien, the fatherless, and the widow,': and the people must all say, 'Amen.'

Now put that up against, say, Luke's version of the Beatitudes (Luke's gospel includes the curses that Matthew leaves out):

Congratulations, you poor!
God's domain belongs to you!

Congratulations, you hungry!
You will have a feast.

Congratulations, you who weep now!
You will laugh.

I've addressed the issue of this translation of the Greek makarios here, if you're interested.

The curses in Deuteronomy are part of a ritual, and are concerned with matters other than just what we would call "social justice."  They are directed to a congregation, a gathering, a synagogue, an ekklesia.   They are first directives, and then the blessing for following those directives.  The ritual ends where Luke's Beatitudes begin:

1 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.

3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.

4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

5 Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.

6 Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.

Jesus is talking to a different crowd than those addressed by the Deuteronomists (scholars consider the writers a school, not an individual).  But that's another story.  For our purposes, the comparison between these scriptures is enough, and it points away from the Ten Commandments as the touchstone and bulwark upon which a fortress is built against evil and error.  In fact, that kind of attitude is one the prophets would denounce as evil and error, because they would identify it as idolatry.  Simply following the words of the law is not the same thing as "hearken[ing] unto the voice of the LORD thy God."  Not unless you think God stopped speaking shortly after those ten rules were written down.  Certainly the Deuteronomist didn't think so.  It's easy to make an idol of those 10 rules, much harder to make an idol out of the Beatitudes in Luke, especially since they continue with these words:

Damn you rich!
You already have your consolation!

Damn you who are well-fed now!
You will know hunger.

Damn you who laugh now!
You will learn to weep and grieve.

Those words attack what we usually think of as the sources of idolatry, but they don't attack wealth and full larders and happiness; in fact, they don't really attack at all.  They point out it won't always be this way:  food runs out, money runs away, all the laughter dies in sorrow; and that is of a piece with the congratulations to the poor, the hungry, the weeping:  this, too, shall pass.  There is a time to every purpose under heaven, but expecting one condition to be permanent and static, wealth or poverty, happiness or sorrow, hunger or satiation, is vanity and striving after emptiness.  The Ten Commandments, used as they usually are as the summation of the law and the basis for ordering society and morality, are abused in a manner it is hard to do with the Beatitudes.  Luke's version, especially, are in keeping with the Magnificat of Mary:  the powerful will be toppled, the powerless raised up.  But that's more a vision of Isaiah's highway for God, also prefigured in Luke's story of John the Baptist (the most complete story in the four gospels):  mountains lowered, valleys raised, so the path of the Lord is straight and visible to all.  In Luke's gospel that vision becomes the foundation for social justice, where the first of all is last and servant of all, and the race is to the bottom, to be the servant of all, not to the top; because when you're number one, the only way to go is down.  You have had your compensation, you will know hunger, you will learn to weep and grieve.

If Roy Moore had heeded those lessons, rather than wrapped his arms around stone tablets he conceived to be all he needed of the Law (of Moses, and the law itself), he might have learned humility and have lived a much more valuable life, life into the ages.  He might have made human beings of others, and a human being of himself.  As it stands now, having made an idol of the Law, he has also made an idol of himself.

I'm not sure that's going to be much consolation.

The Plumbers

does Steve Daines ... does he remember how many House seats Republicans lost in 2018, shortly after the debacle that was the Kavanaugh confirmation process? pic.twitter.com/xU0pS6MEIz

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 3, 2022

The search for the crime continues. https://t.co/TUi99Pxdp7

— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) May 3, 2022

pic.twitter.com/erRnL4jF9M

— Bad Legal Takes (@BadLegalTakes) May 3, 2022

And if it's not the leak, it's the Dead Hand Of History:

The obvious problem with this retort is that the 19th c women's rights advocates -- writing at the time the 14th amendment was ratified (1868) & when legislatures were enhancing CL protections in light of contemporary advances in embryology -- were all opposed to abortion. /1 https://t.co/qVvoyUXJFv

— Erika Bachiochi (@erikabachiochi) May 3, 2022

There's a good (for Twitter) discussion here:

Some thoughts from a historian of motherhood on the SCOTUS draft opinion's gross mischaracterization that "an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973." A 🧵:

— Cassandra Berman, PhD (@BermanCassandra) May 3, 2022

But except for the conclusion:

What we DO have an unbroken tradition of is this: women seeking greater control over their bodies, and women facing the most dangerous of circumstances to control reproduction.

— Cassandra Berman, PhD (@BermanCassandra) May 3, 2022

I still think of it as just the Dead Hand Of History. Never thought I'd use this outside of reference to the ekklesia, but the reasoning here seems sound even if the language is very specifically religious:

Grant that thy Church may be delivered from traditions which have lost their life, from usage which has lost its spirit, from institutions which no longer give life and power to their generation; that the Church may ever shine as a light in the world and be as a city set on a hill.

HEAR OUR PRAYER, O LORD.

I understand the need to ground legal opinion in what has come before (the whole basis of stare decisis as a method of providing stability in the law, even as facts and even expectations change), but this cult of originalism has reached it's nadir.  If the law (read: Constitution) is not alive but instead dead and a corpse we must carry, why do we burden ourselves with it?

I'd like Alito to explain why a right exercised for 50 years is insufficiently "rooted."

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) May 3, 2022

Not old enough to be "original," obviously.  Although if Alito likes it, then it's okay.  It's all about what pleases five people. And that’s the real problem.

By Their Signs Ye Shall Know Them

Signs that many church’s are headed in the wrong directions pic.twitter.com/BeMB7QGslA— Patricia Richardson (@prichardsonla) June 15, 2024

Half of the people are stoned 

And the other half are waiting for the next Election 

Half the people are drowned 

And the other half are swimming in the 

Wrong direction 

They call it Glorious Living

So I’m reading one of Richard Rorty’s last books, and he starts his discussion of pragmatism as a force against authoritarianism with a discussion of “sin,” which he presents from the hoary perspective of God as Cosmic Thunderer, imposing ethics on humanity lest they get out of line and face eternal damnation. Now, he doesn’t do this from a particular Christian point of view (I grew up in a fairly conservative Christian Presbyterian church, and we weren’t that fierce on “damnation.”); he ascribes this to “religion” in general, and roots the critique of it generally in the enlightenment. And he doesn’t do this specifically, but again, very generally.

Let me contrast that with Gadamer’s Vahrheit und Method. I pulled that off the shelf more recently and it fell open to a passage tracing an issue of epistemology (the subject of the book) through Kant to Fichte, to a third philosopher (whose name now escapes me), as he carefully wove a thread of the development of an idea from the 18th century to the 20th. No vague and glittering generalities, but a careful development of a thought.

But religion, in Anglo-American philosophical circles, is often treated as vaguely and generally as possible. Nothing Rorty says about sin applies at all to Judaism, in no small part because ethics in Judaism is based on the Law of Moses (an attitude most truly conservative Christians regard as “legalistic,” unless it suits them to club somebody with the “law.”), and the covenant with Abraham. The Christian concept of sin is not the Jewish one, and it’s hardly unitary and uniform in Christianity. Kierkegaard’s 19th century Danish Lutheran ideas about sin would be foreign to many Christians today, myself included. But Rorty blithely assumes one size fits all, and further assumes “sin” is a universal religious concept, and is universally a monad: windowless, unchanging, and fundamental.

Granted, if you read those church signs, you might think he has a point; at least about the character of sin in American Christianity. It does seem to require an ethic where all “right” (i.e., “correct”) behavior must be guided by an authority beyond us, and to whom we must answer. But isn’t that the character of the Pharisees and the “religious authorities” in the Gospels, who are constantly in opposition to the person and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth? 

Rorty’s really not enough of a student of religion, or even philosophy of religion, to even comment on the subject. Derrida was a Jew by birth (he was not observant), but he wrote trenchantly and intelligently about religion in the Western world, and even about Kierkegaard. It can, in other words, be done. Rorty just never did it. But Rorty’s caricature of religion is a not inapt starting point for this conversation.* Which is that these church signs are a similar kind of caricature of Christianity and Christian soteriology.

I’ve never been a fan of the atonement theory (“Jesus died for your sins “), in no small part because, as one of my seminary professors said, it’s cosmic child abuse. The whole thing makes no sense: in order to appease God’s wrath (OT), there must be a blood sacrifice (a complete misreading of sacrifice in OT), but the only sacrifice big enough is…God? (If we hold true  the Trinity) That leads almost immediately to the OT/NT dichotomy (angry God/loving God), and the “superiority” of Xianity over Judaism (hardly the only source). But you can pull that out without destroying the entire edifice of Xianity.

Let me try to make my point (this is just a blog, after all, and I’m not a philosopher trained in German scholarship) by quoting myself from 18 years ago (!):

And right after that, in Luke 10, Jesus sends out 72 disciples, and they come back rejoicing at what occurred, at what happened simply by proclaiming the Kingdom of God. And that's all they had to do, and that's all Jesus wanted them to do. And he didn't try to start a movement with them, or a group,or an ekklesia. In fact, he didn't tell them to come back for more instruction; he simply rejoiced in their happiness and told them to keep it up, that good things were coming of it already, universally good things. "I saw Satan fall, like lightning from heaven....Nevertheless, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but that your names are enrolled in heaven." (Luke 10:18, 20) All from saying the Kingdom of God is at hand, and caring for the people nobody cared for. 

And those people were already part of a community: they were already the children of Abraham, the ones the prophets said Israel had forgotten to care for once before, and so Babylon came knocking on Jerusalem's gates. How quickly and easily we forget; and yet how simple the solution Jesus offers. And it is not the political solution some may have expected. He does not come as the Messiah who will re-establish the political throne of Israel.

Jesus’ message to his followers is to tell them to first seek the kingdom of God. But he never gives them a map so they can find it. And he doesn’t tell them to teach an ethic based on atonement and “getting right with God.” A bit premature, I grant you, but atonement is based on Paul, whose only report on the life of Jesus of Nazareth is the institution of the last supper.Paul emphasizes ethical living because his Gentiles weren’t raised in the law of Moses. Even Paul’s ethic is not “Live right or die!” That call comes much later on, with Augustine and Anselm (around 300 years after Paul and Jesus, that is).

All Jesus says to his followers is to go proclaim the basileia tou theou. The focus of Jesus’ ministry was not on the bye and bye, but on the here and now. Even the sheep and goats parable is about how we treated others, not whether we followed all the rules. Sin, in most Christian practice, is about separating “us” from “them.” Matthew’s parable dissolves such dichotomies.

“Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.” And the basileia tou theou is in the here and now. Proclaim it, Jesus says; not “tell people they can earn it if they follow this rule book I’ve handed out to you.” 

Is there a price of admission? Yes: love your neighbor as yourself.” “Anyone who is not against you, is with you.” “Take care of each other..” “Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me.” I guess that last one involves a cosmic authority, but it actually works in the opposite direction. It makes us all the same; erases distinctions we like to make between “us” and “them.” More importantly, it puts the focus on them. It’s not about what I need (which is the basis of Aristotle’s ethics), and focuses on what they need. The emphasis is on how to make life better for everyone, not on how to make life better for me.

Which is why I agree with Patricia Richardson: by their signs (be glad I spared you a discussion on signification), these churches are heading in the wrong direction.

*It’s Juneteenth as I write; and as I came across a post of a speech by Dr. King from 1967. He underlines my point about Rorty’s wild swing and dramatic miss.

Now, I’ll be the first one to say that there is real need for a lot of heart changing in our country. And I believe in changing the heart. I preach about it. I believe in the need for conversion, in many instances, and regeneration, to use theological terms. And I would be the first to say that if the race problem in America is to be solved, the white person must treat the Negro right, not merely because the law says it, but because it’s natural. Because it’s right. And because the Negro is his brother. 

And so I realize that if we are to have a truly integrated society, men and women will have to rise to the majestic heights of being obedient to the unenforceable. 

But after saying this, let me say another thing: Although it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. Even though it may be true that the law cannot change the heart, it can restrain the harvest. Even though it may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, it can restrain him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also.

"Being obedient to the unenforceable” is the closest King comes to Rorty’s description of sin as the sign we must obey an outside authority in order to be ethical. King posits that authority in the law, but recognizes a more fundamental authority in the individual will, and in the human heart. I’m not sure Rorty’s characterization wasn’t a caricature in the Age of the Enlightenment; but it certainly is today.

Guy at Trump rally in WI today says his number one issue is the fall of religion in America, and he supports Trump because he will save Christianity. pic.twitter.com/sgbMhcFFt7

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) June 18, 2024