Unworthy thoughts

@ Duck and Decanter

I have a rather plain (if not downright ugly) set of dishes at home. The set was left by the people I bought my home from in 2002. The dishes are heavy, thick and don’t fit in the dishwasher very well – especially the bowls. They were left neatly boxed with all of the original paper wrappings in the box that they came in. When I first saw the dishes I wondered why anyone with any sensibilities or taste would want them. Then I noticed the neatly penciled notation on the box. It read “For the Poor”. Then I understood. Before I saw the notation I had intended to take the box (which had been opened) down to a Goodwill donation center. I thought “I’ll be damned; they will compliment my set of Corelle Ware for four (with one missing dinner plate).” The couple that left them were somewhere in their late sixties at the time and I believe that they dabbled in real estate by flipping houses. Remember those days?

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The dishes themselves had not been much used, if at all. It looked as if someone had purchased them and upon seeing what they were really like (the picture on the box was definitely their best profile) deciding that they weren’t good enough for someone that wasn’t “poor”. Maybe they were right but they are good enough for me. I thought about the dishes again this week because last Wednesday, May 27, 2009, there was an event for Native Americans at Steele Indian School Park (as well as here) in Phoenix. It was: Wellbriety Journey of Forgiveness Workshop sponsored by the Yavapai Nation & White Bison Inc. The reason I knew about it was that a friend had been asked to set up and man a table at the workshop. My friend is a successful mature woman that I would not have thought in the least bit biased or racially insensitive. We were talking about it being outside and this being late May in Phoenix when she said “Oh, they are Native Americans and it doesn’t bother them.” She must know a different set of Native Americans than I do.

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My friend and the couple I bought my home from are unfortunately not alone in the use of demeaning stereotypes. Take, for example, an article in yesterday’s Ventura County Star. The article, Westlake High official apologizes for racially offensive skit, was about two students (who happened to be Latino) portraying negative Latino stereotypes in a skit. The skit was the students’ brain child. It also included a license plate with “BNR” – standing for “Beaner” hereafter to be referred to as “the B word”. If you want more information you will have to read the article. I don’t do article or book reports.

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I found the comments really interesting. I almost didn’t read past the first one:

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Cultural Sensitivity training ??? Are you insane ??? Just because some poor sap cant [sic] take a joke….

What if two white kids were up there driving a hoopty car and making fun of being trailer trash and did that same skit. I guarantee no one would care and would laugh because that would be funny as hell. Oh right…white kids in WV and TO have no idea what trailer trash is…my bad.

Just another example of the pussification of American…get over it.

Posted by fish on May 29, 2009 at 4:36 p.m in the Ventura County Star

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The WV (Westlake Villiage) and TO (Thousand Oaks) referred to by “fish” are affluent cities North of Los Angles. When I read the comment, I thought “OMG!” But I persevered. To my surprise, the comments seem pretty evenly divided into categories. I read through them quickly so I am not sure how even the divisions are.

1. What’s the fuss about?

2. It was offensive!

3. It was not offensive!

4. It was funny.

5. It was not funny.

The offensive and not offensive categories each have two sub-categories of I am, I am not Latino.

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I have one last story about this subject. The Honolulu Star Bulletin ran Waianae High yearbook contains ‘racially insensitive’ photo, DOE says . The story was about a picture of a group photo in a yearbook with students holding cards that spelled out the “N” word.

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The use of negative stereotypes seems to be endemic in humans and as far as I can tell goes back a long way in human history as well as in Christianity (and Judaism, for that matter). The New Testament is filled with “the Jews” used in negative connotations. Examples of negative stereotypes found in the bible have been used to justify slavery, mistreating Jews, keeping females in their place and of course homophobia. It is easy to think people are inferior because they are different. At least we tell ourselves that and use it as a convenient justification for our actions. The couple I bought my home from believe the poor deserved no better than their cast offs. My friend no doubt thinks since Native Americans can take the heat better than whites (supposedly, at least in her mind) it is OK for them to be without air conditioning in the summer. The dean that approved the skit thought that since the students were Latino it would be OK to use a negative stereotype. God only knows what the students in Hawaii were thinking.

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Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be able to get rid of all the negative stereotypes that lurk inside me. For example, those about the couple I bought my home from, my friend, “fish” and the Hawaiian students.

Of Archbishops and men

@ Duck and Decanter

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Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, has weighed in on the scandal over expenses in the UK. He wrote a guest contributor comment, Enough humiliation. We must move on, in the London Times. He has taken a lot of flack over the article. Deservedly so I think. It seems to me that the prophetic role of the church to government (and the people) is to demand justice. Justice perhaps mingled with morality. Justice includes punishment for the guilty.

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The point of this scandal is not just a little corruption in high places. There is a tremendous amount of anger in United Kingdom over this. Again, deservedly so. This is not just a few people on the take. This is systematic corruption across all political boundaries. An article, Beneath a British Scandal, Deeper Furies, in the New York Times describes both the anger and the reason behind the anger.

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For the man, the scholar, and the priest that Rowan Williams is, I have great respect and admiration. For the leader I have my doubts. This despite a very favorable piece, The Velvet Reformation, I read in the Atlantic Monthly. The article is a must read for a frank discussion of the ins and outs on Rowan Williams and the gay issue. I must say I came away with a different understanding of his stand on this issue. I still don’t agree with it but I do have more sympathy for his viewpoint. It is as a prophet – in the true sense of the word – that I see his greatest failing.

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I always think of Nathan confronting King David about the bedding of Bathsheba and then killing Uriah the Hittite, her husband, when I think of being a prophetic witness to those in power.

1. The LORD sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, “There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.

2. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle,

3. but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him.

4. “Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.”

5. David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, “As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die!

6. He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

7. Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man! This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.

8. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more.

9. Why did you despise the word of the LORD by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

10. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’

2 Samuel 12 (New International Version)

I can’t imagine Rowan Williams as Nathan. Can you?

3 stories of hope

@ Duck and Decanter

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There has been a lot of doom and gloom news lately. Much of it has to do with financial news of course along with the avarice of many of those involved. Items such as the impeachment of former Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, have added to my disillusionment. This past week was physically gloomy in Phoenix. I loved the cool and rain but as always with me I dislike the reason – clouds – for it. When the skies are overcast my mood invariably becomes negative. Generally the negativity worsens with the length of time the sun is obscured. It came as a surprise then that I felt the stirrings of hope as I sat in the rain Thursday evening. Maybe I should explain.

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My oldest grandson, Christopher, graduated from Gilbert High School last Thursday. Gilbert, (and here) Arizona is a town (as opposed to a city) Southeast of Phoenix that has grown rather suddenly in the last few years. One of the results of that growth is a high school that had 700 students in the graduating class. The class, when given the choice of graduating inside on the ASU campus or outside on the football field at Gilbert High, voted to have it at the school they had attended. That, and the fact that it rained, explains why I was sitting in the rain Thursday. I noticed a few drops on the windshield as I arrived at the school at 6:15 PM. The drizzle began about 6:30. The ceremonies were scheduled to start at 7:00. Actual start was about 7:25. It didn’t rain hard and eventually I wound up with an umbrella but I still grumbled about the late start.

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The usual rah, rah, rah did nothing to lighten my mood. In fact most of what I heard sounded distressing similar to what I heard when I graduated (1961). Another thing that had darkened my mood was that Gilbert High has ROTC and there was an honor guard complete with rifles (fake, I trust). I have rather negative feelings about ROTC (rot-C in my college days) on high school campuses. In colleges and universities they are old enough to choose to train with weapons but in high school? I definitely don’t like teenagers with guns – fake or not. I was still debating with myself on the merits of this when I heard one of the students say something that turned my thoughts in a different direction. Essentially what the young lady said was that the 700 hundred graduates had the power to change the world. Probably not a new idea at a graduation ceremony. It was the way that she suggested for the change to occur that captured my attention. I’ll paraphrase as best I can. The 700 could (by example) become 1,000, then 10,000, then a million. Maybe that isn’t new either but it is the first time I have heard it in quite that way. The suggestion was that the change could be accomplished on an individual to individual basis.

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In From Jesus to Constantine: A History of Early Christianity (A Teaching Company course), Bart Ehrman, theorizes that Christianity grew by individuals spreading the word about Jesus and not by mass conversions of people hearing evangelists. He believes that even Paul converted people in this way. This makes a lot of sense to me. The individual to individual method seems more realistic to me than in groups listening to a ‘killer’ preacher and succumbing to mass remorse or hysteria. Maybe that is why I liked the commencement speaker’s take on the way to change the world. No geniuses needed; just good people doing good.

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That was Thursday. Friday I heard a love story that also seemed hopeful. I have a friend that wore a rather unique necklace Friday. In previous conversations with my friend I had learned that for many years her marriage had been troubled but then the relationship had turned around and for several years now had been more relaxed. This day she told me of how she had bought a bracelet and earrings many years before that had just seemed to suit her personality and she loved to wear them. She had the earrings on and I could see how they did suit her. Some years later then her husband happened to work with someone that made jewelry and he obtained a necklace that matched the earrings. My friend related that she would never have guessed that her husband had ever noticed the earrings … until he gave her the necklace. I didn’t ask but I wondered when this had happened in their marriage. Was it before or after the turn around?

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Saturday then, I read a story about a hero. For a couple of weeks I have been following a series of stories in the Manchester Telegraph about a scandal in the British House of Commons. It seems from the articles in the Telegraph that many (if not most) MPs (MP = Member of Parliament) had been padding their allowances for housing. Saturday’s edition carried the story of John Wick, the whistleblower. The story never tells how he knew of the fraudulent expenses but it does tell of his motivation:

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We’ve all had concerns about the expenses and how they’ve managed it, purely because of how they’ve handled our requests for information.

We’ve reached a stage in society where they want to know everything about us – I think we’re entitled to know about them.

Parliament will be a better place, society will be a better place. Sometimes a marker has to be put down. The public’s put a marker down. It’s good.

John Wick as reported in Manchester Telegraph story MPs’ expenses whistleblower John Wick on why he set the scandal running 22 May 2009.

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Some MPs either didn’t submit any charges for housing or did so for reasonable amounts which makes them heroes to my way of thinking. I also learned that MPs can hire family members or friends. In some cases that also allowed extra scope to raid the public coffers (because hired family members could also collect for maintaining an office). There is quite an uproar over the scandal in Great Britain and it looks like even more heads will roll. It is too early to tell if any one party will benefit as the problem encompasses all of the political parties equally. It all started because one man told what he knew to begin the process of change.

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Do you think there is any chance that John might take a peek at our Congress?

Love who? Beyond what??

A number of questions have been sent in lately regarding the topic of being “loved beyond our wildest imagination” and its implications.  Some have wondered where that phrase comes from, which is not only part of the Phoenix Affirmations (#9) but is also repeated in the blessing given each week at Countryside Church.  Others have wondered about the implications of the phrase, particularly as it may apply to those who engage in abusive or otherwise destructive behavior toward others.  “What does this kind of love mean for the murderer, the rapist, etc.,” is one form of the question.  Or “What about Hitler – is he loved beyond his wildest imagination, too?”

I have to catch a plane to Scottsdale in a couple hours (our eldest daughter, Arianna, is graduating!), so I can only address the question of origins right now, which gets us into the notion of salvation along with it.  I’ll get to the question of implications for mean and nasty people later in the week.   Regarding the origin of “loved bey0nd our wildest imagination”:

Nearly a decade ago I was noticing that we in the more liberal/progressive end of the theological swimming pool do not talk much about salvation.  We use the word – occasionally – but we really don’t have much to say about it.  In fact, many people seem downright embarassed about the term thanks in no small part to the way it has been thrown around in circles where salvation mostly means salvation from everlasting torture in hell. Having rejected the essentially unbiblical (yet very popular) notion that God would torture people for eternity if they don’t please God in a certain way, and with it the notion that one would need to be “saved” from such a fate, liberals/progressives have largely let any notion of salvation fall by the wayside.

I found this situation unfortunate, and still do.  While hell as popularly conceived may be an unbiblical notion, salvation is certainly not.  Salvation is spoken of – and sung about – practically from cover to cover in the Bible, and has continued to be an important feature of Christian faith all the way up to the present era.  But what does salvation mean if it doesn’t mean salvation from eternal damnation?

This may seem like a purely academic issue to some, but the rubber really hits the road when we consider the implications of our concept of salvation (or lack thereof) in the real world.  For instance, if you aren’t being saved from hell, does it matter that one be a person of faith at all?  Most Christians would (hopefully) say “Yes.”  But does it matter in a way that’s significant? that makes a definitive qualitative difference in your life?  If so, how do you characterize this difference?  How does having Christian faith lead you to understandings and actions that you wouldn’t be thinking/acting on if you did not have faith in the God of Jesus?  If you can’t point to any significant difference that faith makes in your life, can you really claim that there is any compelling reason to have faith to begin with?  In fact, wouldn’t it be quite a bit more compelling to conclude that it is better not to have faith, since Christianity asks for such serious commitments from us, like tithing, and praying, and going to church, etc.?  Why would  any reasonable person do and give all these things if faith makes no discernible difference in people’s lives?

For fundamentalists, all this is talk is beside the point.  Faith saves them from hell and gets them into heaven.  What bigger difference is there than that?  And this belief is precisely why a person might be persuaded to introduce her or his neighbor to Jesus.  Ninety-nine percent of all the evangelism done by fundamentalist Christians – and they do a lot of evangelism compared to everyone else – is done precisely to “save” people from the fires of hell.  In other words, fundamentalists have a very clear notion of what salvation is, and this notion compels them not only to be people of faith themselves but to evangelize others.

Not so with liberal/progressives.  Salvation is a “squishy” term.  We’re really not sure what it means or implies, and therefore it almost goes without saying that we’re not going to try particularly hard to make new friends of Jesus. And we wonder why all the mainline denominations have decreased in members every year since the mid-sixties?!

A decade ago, I wasn’t content with this situation.  I looked out over the mainline Chrisitan landscape and saw a whole lot of folks for whom Christianity was mainly a cultural phoenomenon that simply was blessing whatever the dominant culture of the time decided was worthy of blessing.  I saw a faith whose message had essentially devolved into “Be good and don’t rock the boat too much.”  And I said to myself, “This is what Jesus died for??”  While I do not subscribe to the theology of substitutionary atonement (the concept that Jesus had to die in order to take on a punishment that God was going to give us, and thus save us from hell), I do very much believe that Jesus’ death was meaningful, and that he died for a lot more than simply for us to live a decent and orderly life.

So I determined to come up with a new definition of salvation (i.e., a statement about why the faith matters so much to me that I would, in fact, strive to introduce friends and neighbors to Jesus if they hadn’t been introduced already).  Or, short of a new definition, I simply wanted to find one that would resonate with theological ears tuned similarly to my own.  Thus, I launched into a six-week preaching series at Scottsdale Congregational Church called “Does Jesus Save?”  I had no definition of salvation going into the series, but I figured I’d have one by the end of it!  And, by gum, I actually did.  The definition has stuck with me ever since.

So what’s my definition of salvation?  Salvation is discovering that we are loved beyond our wildest imagination and determining to orient our lives according to this discovery. Period.

Please note that there are two halves to this statement.  Salvation is not simply discovering you are loved beyond what you can comprehend.  It also has to do with deciding to manifest this love in your everyday life.  Note that this second half is not “salvation by works.”  It imlies nothing about the successfulness of our attempt.  But it does acknowledge that salvation is more than just an intellectual phenomenon.  We may be “loved beyond our wildest imagination” whether we act on our discovery or not, but this discovery really can’t do any good for us until it also moves us to live and understand life differently than we did before the discovery.

Christianity and Other Faiths – Part 1

For the next couple weeks, we’ll be exploring Affirmation 1 of the Phoenix Affirmations in worship and small groups (Asphalt Jesus groups, Chapter 4: Jesus First Baptist Church).  Affirmation 1 reads: “Christian love of God includes walking fully in the path of Jesus, without denying the legitimacy of other paths that God may provide for humanity.”

Here are some thoughts to help spur reflection on the relationship between Christianity and other faiths.  They’re based on a section that was cut from the original draft of my book on the Phoenix Affirmations.

Imagine the following scene:  A steel gray, state-of-the-art Iranian-made military helicopter hovers menacingly above a New England style white-steepled Christian church.  Smoke billows from a burned out car nearby as Iranian militia repel from the helicopter toward the roof ready to attack the church.

Does this scene raise your heart rate any?  Now suppose you were to learn this scene was depicted in a prominent Iranian government and policy journal in an advertisement for a new military helicopter.  In front of the church sits a sign reading, “Jesus Church,” removing all doubt about the nature of the building being attacked. Below the scene you find a caption reading, “It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell.”  A further caption states that the craft “delivers Special Forces to insertion points never thought possible.”

How do you feel now?  What are your feelings toward the people who created the ad?  Even though the ad’s purpose is to sell helicopters, what does it suggest about prevailing attitudes toward Christianity or Christians themselves on the part of the ad’s creators and the journal’s readership? 

There is good news and bad news behind this mental exercise.  The good news is that such an ad has never appeared in an Iranian journal.  The bad news is that a similar ad, only depicting an American-made V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and American military personnel rappelling onto the roof of an Islamic mosque has, in fact, appeared.  A sign in front of the building read in Arabic, “Muhammad Mosque,” and the same disturbing captions appeared in the ad. The ad was not published in the Arab world as a piece of anti-American propaganda, but in America.  It appeared in the National Journal, a prominent Washington government and policy magazine, on September 24, 2005. 

You can view the ad by clicking this link: mosqueattackad

To the credit of the aircraft’s creators, Boeing and Bell Helicopters, as well as the National Journal itself, the ad was pulled immediately after a protest was filed from the Council for American-Islamic Relations.  Public apologies were issued.  The companies cited “clerical error” as the culprit behind the ad and spoke of the need for “evaluating creative processes.”

I cite this example not to suggest that the ad represents the attitudes of all Americans toward either Islam or Islamic countries.  Indeed, America has a long and impressive record of tolerance and welcome toward people of other faiths.  This not only includes American Christians’ attitudes toward non-Christians, but American Muslims’ stance toward non-Muslims, American Hindus’ toward non-Hindus, and so on.  Indeed, while there have always been distinct and highly regrettable exceptions in our historical record, America’s record of tolerance may favorably be compared to that of any other country on earth.

Whether it was the often brutal treatment of Native Americans by settlers and the U.S. government itself two centuries ago or the inhumane and demoralizing treatment of Chinese immigrants by San Franciscans around the beginning of the last century, there has been a shadowy subtext to many of these sad stories: The perpetrators have frequently been Christians who believed fervently that Christianity is the only legitimate path to God and that all others will burn in hell for eternity if they are not “saved” for Jesus.

Of course, not every Christian believes this way.  According to a recent major study, in fact, 7 in 10 Christians believe that many religions can lead to eternal life, including 6 in every 10 evangelicals, 8 in 10 mainliners and Catholics – despite the fact that the “official” doctrinal stances of of evangelicals and Catholics would suggest otherwise.  Incidentally, you can see a graphical depiction of the results of that poll by clicking on Question 9 after clicking here.

Further, of those who do believe non-Christians will go to hell, relatively few will ever become violent or inhumane toward them.  In fact, what few people recognize is the level of compassion many of these believers have toward non-Christians.  Think about it: If you honestly believed (and perhaps you do believe) that those who do not “believe in their heart and confess with their tongue” that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior will be tortured in the fires of hell for eternity, would you not do everything in your power to save non-believers?  How much love and compassion could you say you really have if you do not make every effort to convert non-Christians before they die, by hook or by crook? 

Christian liberals often don’t like to admit it, but such beliefs have fueled the fires of some of the most energetic efforts to better the condition of the downtrodden in our country.  Just visit an inner-city homeless shelter run by Christians or a prison ministry and you’ll often find sincere, very conservative people of faith doing their best to reach out to those whom society has rejected.  Of course, a strong motivation for their being there is to “save souls for Jesus.”  Yet, even if one may disagree with their theology and may disagree as well with some of their tactics, it is hard to deny the sincerity and compassion of many of these rugged souls.  While many people sit on the sidelines and critique a homeless ministry, for instance, for requiring their clientele to sit through a sermon before being offered a bed for the night, they ignore the fact that many of these preachers, soup kitchen workers and counselors have made tremendous personal sacrifices and endured all kinds of abuse both by those they’re serving and those who sit on the sidelines in order to do what they do.

However, just as many Christian liberals tend to overlook the sincerity and compassion behind their more conservative brothers and sisters, so also do many Christian conservatives tend to overlook the shadow side of their beliefs, quite apart from arguments for or against the beliefs themselves.

When a person of any faith believes fervently that non-believers will suffer for eternity after they die for their lack of belief, it not only has a tendency to lead a person toward compassion toward unbelievers, but also to disdain the religions that keep people from “true” belief.  If you are convinced, for instance, that Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism – the three other largest world religions – are directly responsible for the suffering of billions of people for eternity in hell, just how much respect are you likely to have for these faith traditions?  And, as much as you may wish to think otherwise, how much respect are you likely to have for the leaders of these other faiths?  If you dare allow a sliver of respect or admiration in your heart for these faiths or faith leaders, does it not sometimes occur to you that this could be a trick of the devil trying to turn your heart from saving souls?  Just how much incentive do you have to consider other Christian stances toward those of other faiths, like that represented by Affirmation 1?

To believe that other paths may lead to God is not at all to deny one’s faith in Jesus Christ.  Personally, Christ is my only “way, truth, and life.”  I am “joyfully and unapologetically” Christian.  I have no desire to follow other religious figures or faiths.  Christianity is my path and I’m very happy about it.  However, to claim that Christianity is my path, or even to claim that Christianity is the best path (for me), is not to say Christianity is the only path.  God is far greater than I can possibly imagine.  And I trust that, since so many humble, religious folks on the planet are not Christian, God has created other paths beyond the one I claim as my own.

But I get ahead of myself.  We’ll deal directly with the relationship between Christianity and other faiths in our May 31st worship service.  There, we’ll specifically look at Jesus words that he is the “way, the truth, and the life” and that “no one comes to the Father except through me.”  Believe it or not, one can faithfully affirm these words and hold to the view that God creates other paths.  Jesus himself says so. But again, I get ahead of myself …

Can you be angry and loving at the same time?

Here’s another question from the Waterstraat group (The second of two. I responded to the first in the last post):

Many of us seem to have personal stories of frustrations with other, more “conservative” organized religions or individual churches who, to us, seem(ed) to preach a message of fear and exclusion. Many of us fled these other churches and were initially drawn to Countryside by the simple message stamped in the walkway before the front door — “All Are Welcome.” Many of us also seem to have close friends or family members in our lives who believe deeply that their specific brand of Christianity is the “only way,” and who openly tell us that they grieve for us and pray for us hoping that we won’t be “burned in Hell forever.” We find ourselves torn. On one hand we seem to agree that just as we parent our different children in different ways, as individuals, many of us need our “Father” to parent us in different ways — some of us need to be told what to do, and some of us need more leash. We lean on C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, and rejoice that our friends are “in the house,” and we don’t want to fight with them over which room they choose to hang out in. On the other hand, we also agree that Christians who preach a message based on fear and exclusivity to us seem to have completely missed who Jesus really was/is. We want to be angry and loving at the same time, and we’re not sure how to walk this dual path.

Your well-stated desire to be “angry and loving at the same time” is shared with a great many Christians around the country who are concerned with unloving and fear-based manifestations of Christian faith (often due to personal experience of it).  It is clear that you do not wish to manifest the same fear and hate only from a different perspective in making a response – a commendable desire!

Later in Asphalt Jesus I talk about “Good Friday” energy that has seized Christians on both sides of the theological divide.  “Good Friday” energy is the energy of anger, which essentially says, “Someone has crucified the Jesus of my understanding.  I think I know who did it.  So now let’s go get the crucifiers and crucify them!”

In the Seven Deadly Sins series we spoke of Anger being like salt.  A little salt can be a wonderful thing, helping to define and intensify the many and varied flavors of a dish.  Yet if you keep pouring salt, it can turn a great tasting dish into something that’s inedible.  If you pour still more, salt will actually turn a dish into poison.  The key with anger is: can you let go of it?  If you can, great.  If you can’t, then likely anger is poisoning you, as well as those who may be objects of your anger.

In this regard, the late William Sloan-Coffin, senior minister of Riverside Church in New York City, once helpfully observed: “True, we have to hate evil; else we’re sentimental.  But if we hate evil more than we love the good, we become damn good haters, and of those the world already has too many.  However, deep, our anger like that of Christ, must always and only measure our love.”

I think Sloan-Coffin hits the nail on the head.  And notice that he brings Jesus into his equation.  Read through any of the gospels and you find that Jesus could get angry – very angry – at those who were distorting the love of God, neighbor, and/or self.  The self-righteous were particular objects of his anger, as well as religious leaders (often one and the same people).  Jesus could call them a “brood of vipers,” and accuse them of making converts “twice the sons of hell [Gehenna = garbage dump] as you are.”

Thus, if anyone wonders whether it’s possible to criticize fellow believers – even severely – and remain faithful to the Christian Path, one need only turn to the one we claim to follow for confirmation.  Yes, there is an appropriate place for “calling out” those who, in our view, are turning the Path of Love into the Path of Fear and Hatred.  However, we need to do it like Jesus did it.  I believe there’s plenty of evidence in the gospels to suggest that Jesus’ criticisms arose out of a deep conviction regarding the value and worth of those he was criticizing.  His criticisms often have a ring to them like, “I know you’re BETTER THAN THAT!  I know you’re CAPABLE OF SO MUCH MORE!  When will you ever start using the high gifts and graces with which you’ve been entrusted rather than throwing them all away?”

In other words, Jesus engaged the self-righteous, the religious leaders, and so forth, out of deep respect for them.  Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bothered to give them the time of day.   Jesus saw clearly that the objects of his fury were loved beyond their wildest imagination and essentially was screaming, “When are you ever going to start ACTING like it?  When are you going to wake up and hear the music of God’s grace and love wafting through the air? “

When it comes down to it, what shows a person with whom you disagree more respect: criticizing them to their face, or remaining silent and letting them continue their destructive path without challenge (perhaps even criticizing them behind their backs, or writing them off as “hopeless’)?

Personally, if someone has a strong disagreement with me, I’d much prefer that person to come out and state it rather than keeping to her/himself – even if the message came with some degree of anger.  For, in “daring” to be critical, that person also honors me implicitly by (a) believing that I might actually clear my ego aside long enough to listen to what she/he has to say; (b) believing that I have the capacity to weigh this person’s argument and potentially change my ways as a result; (c) believing that I won’t be childish and lash out at the person for bruising my ego; (d) showing that the person, by conversing with me, may actually be willing to hear and respond to my point-of-view after stating hers/his.

Thus, criticism is as much a sign of interest and belief in someone as it is disagreement.  So be angry.  Just make sure to you can let go of it, in which case your anger will likely “add flavor to the dish” rather than poisoning it.  And the best way to ensure that you can let go of your anger (besides praying, which I highly recommend!), is to make sure that love for God, your neighbor, and yourself is not taking a back seat.

Crime and punishment

@ Duck and Decanter

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This morning on Piestewa Peak (I hike the Summit Trail most mornings) I did some calculations in my head as I was hiking. I was sweating a lot because the temp was around 85 F at 5:00 AM and so a little extra effort was required to take my mind off of the conditions. It was extra warm because of the cloud cover – water, H₂O, is also an excellent “green house” gas – and not much heat radiated into space from the Phoenix area last night. Any way I was doing mental mathematics to keep my thoughts off of the sweat. I am not as good as I used to be at doing sums (or more to the point here – division) in my head but I still remember a few tricks. There are some mile markers on the trail. There is a .25 mile, a .5 mile, a .75 mile, and at the top a 1.2 mile marker. I passed the .75 mile point at 20 minutes and reached the top at 34 minutes. So, I did ¾ of the hike up in 10/17 of the time. All approximate of course. You see, I actually passed the .75 mile marker at 19 min. 40 sec. and reached the top at 33 min. 30 sec. And then the .75 mile marker is not ¾ of the way. But if you want to get accurate the top is not 1.2 miles (it is just under 1.1 according to my GPS measurements made over many hikes). And then this morning I took the longer Alternate Summit trail which makes the mile markers completely irrelevant. Furthermore the times weren’t exactly 19 min 40 sec. or 33 min. 30 sec. My mind works like that – sort of. I keep on wanting an ever more accurate representation of reality.

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I also want to know reasons for what happens in the world and more specifically who is responsible for events. This is especially so when it comes to assigning blame for the bad things. I think I am like a lot of other people in that regard. Yesterday I saw a list on AOL about the top ten people responsible for the present economic mess. I also saw a list of the top 20 worst CEOs. I could not find the top ten list today but I did find a top 25 list by Time Magazine (link is here). Dick Fuld made all the lists (you will have to take my word for the top ten list since I can’t find it). One of the reasons Richard made the list is that he took home nearly $500 million during his tenure as CEO of Lehman Brothers before the bankruptcy that precipitated the present crises. My opinion is that would make him more of a thief than a bad CEO but then I can’t comprehend earning that much money or even why a business would invest in sub-prime mortgages (which aren’t worth anything – that is why they are “sub-prime”). Now everyone is pointing a finger at Dick Fuld. The people pointing are more knowledgeable about financial matters than I am, I am sure, but I do see here a basic human desire of wanting punishment for bad deeds.

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Sometimes I wonder if that desire for justice has something to do with the popularity of fundamentalism. I know that the thought of divine retribution was comforting during my stint of being a fundamentalist. It has also been obvious to me that justice was in short supply in the here and now. My error (I now believe) was in expecting a messiah to come and usher in an age of perfect justice. It would certainly be nice to know that Dick Fuld would get his by Jesus returning and casting him into a lake of fire. My best guess is that that probably won’t happen. People have been waiting around for justice to be delivered in that fashion for around 2000 years now and it hasn’t happened yet. I suppose I could hope that in the event Jesus doesn’t make it back soon, Dick would be taken care of at death. But I am not sure of that either; and anyway, who am I to judge him?

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I am not so sure that Dick Fuld was (is?) the problem anyhow. I suspect that the real problem is the system. Dick was well thought of before things fell apart. For instance, he was a member of the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The board of Lehman must have had a high regard for him forcing him to cart all that loot home. Time’s 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis doesn’t rank the culprits but on the reader’s poll he came in at number nine (he is number 1 on the bad CEO list) which indicates to me that other people are also having difficulty giving him all of the blame. What is clear to me is that there was little or no oversight of his actions, either by the Lehman board or by government agencies that were supposed to regulate Lehman. So, I pick the system for blame.

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Unfortunately systems don’t get sent to eternal lakes of fire. That is a pity. I wonder: how much the system will get changed by all this?

By what authority? Eric’s reply to a small group’s question.

I’m thrilled that some of the Asphalt Jesus study groups have not only been conversing over issues of faith within their groups but are, more and more, extending the conversation out to the blog.  Quite a number of questions have come in over the last two days.  I’ll take the next several days to address them, starting with this one from the Waterstraat group:

We are all very open to loving and respecting people of all beliefs and open to believing that the question of salvation is God’s decision and not ours. We believe that God loves all people, and that the “deadline” for truly accepting God’s grace doesn’t need to be bounded by our human life on earth just as our human understanding of “seven days” doesn’t in any way necessarily correlate with God’s view of time. Some of us though are troubled somewhat in that we also want to stand up and state with authority, “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, AND in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord!” In other words, we do believe that God loves all people and offers salvation to all people, and we do believe that we aren’t the ones who get to determine the timeline, but we also believe that Jesus is the key, and we don’t want to throw Him under the bus or lose sight of Him in this. How do we, for example, say to our many devout Jewish friends, “I believe that God loves you and offers salvation for you just as He does for me, but I believe that that path to salvation is through Jesus?”

What a great set of question (or set of questions, really)!  We’ll all be addressing the relationship between Christianity and other faiths when the groups move into Chapter 4 (“Jesus First Baptist Church) and Affirmation 1.  However, for the time being, let me focus on one particular statement made above.  Your group expresses a desire to “stand up and state with authority” that “I believe in God … and in Jesus Christ, his only Son our Lord.”

Readers familiar with the Apostle’s Creed will recognize these words, as they come straight from it and are recited by Lutherans, Episcopalians, Catholics and others a weekly basis in worship.  Yet, I note that you only cite the first couple lines of the Apostle’s Creed.  Was this for brevity’s sake, or was it because the Creed in its entirety does not express what you truly believe?  For instance, the very next line of the Creed states, “He [Jesus] was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.”  Does belief in the virgin birth elicit the same desire to stand up and speak with authority?  How about the Creed’s articulated belief in hell, the second coming, or the physical, bodily resurrection of believers?

I’m not suggesting that all members of the study group will object logically or theologically to all of the Creed’s beliefs, but I suspect that agreement breaks down rapidly the further one moves into the Creed.  Even in churches where the Creed is stated each week (Lutheran, Episcopalian, Catholic, etc), I find it hard to find a single person who affirms all the Creed’s statements.  Members will tell me privately something to the effect of, “Of course, I don’t actually believe all this [nudge, nudge, wink, wink] … but it’s our tradition … it’s The Creed.”  I don’t know about you, but I don’t find it particularly amusing to stand before God in worship as a congregation on a weekly basis and publicly lie.

I may appear a bit “off topic” here, with respect to your question, but your stated desire is to “state with authority” a the portion of the Apostle’s Creed that states a belief in God and Jesus.  Yet upon what does this desired authority rest?  On the authority of the Creed?  If so, then the Creed would demand ascription to ALL of its statements, not just certain ones.  That’s what Creeds are about. Creeds serve as tests of faith, as opposed to Affirmations, which serve as testimonies of faith.  Creeds serve to judge who is a “legitimate” Christian or member of a church and who is not.  You can literally be kicked out of certain churches, or excommunicated, for refusal to recognize the authority of the Creed.  By contrast, Affirmations have no authority beyond personal faith statement. No one can use a set of Affirmations (Phoenix Affirmations or otherwise) as a basis for judging the legitimacy of anyone’s faith.  There is no authority beyond, “This I believe …”

In other words, the Phoenix Affirmations, like other Affirmations such as the United Church of Christ’s “Statement of Faith,” base their only authority on the experience and beliefs of the person making them, and nothing else.  This isn’t much authority!  But ask yourself, how much more authority would you really like, and at what cost to yourself … and others?

The Phoenix Affirmations do, in fact, assert a belief in God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.  The Affirmations also state that we who ascribe to them them “walk fully in the path of Jesus.”  Where the Affirmations stop short is in the statement that anyone beyond ourselves must believe in these things.  Surely, and hopefully, a great many more people do believe them.  Yet because there is no requirement to do so, this means that no one needs to feel pressured to affirm them.  No one need pretend to ascribe to these beliefs in order to become or remain an active member of any church or faith gathering, and thus the only people who state them publicly are those who truly believe them.

This principle gives the Phoenix Affirmations and others like them a special authority – that of honesty.  Personally, that’s enough for me.

A question of where I stand, everyday.

@ Duck and Decanter

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I read Bishop John Shelby Spong’s latest newsletter, Jerusalem: Where Scholarship Ends and the Tourist Trade Begins with interest. It is about his feelings on touring Jerusalem knowing that most if not all of the touristy stuff there is, well to put it bluntly, hogwash. He is of course a biblical scholar and has spent many years studying the scriptures. I am not a biblical scholar and have only devoted the last four years on a part-time basis to a semi-systematic study of the bible. I know no Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic. I am lucky if I can remember any words from my high school Latin. But thanks to Bishop Spong and others such as Amy-Jill Levine, Bart Ehrman (not to mention Tex Sample, Eric Elnes and Jeff Proctor-Murphy on a personal basis) I have become convinced that my former fundamentalist understanding of the scriptures was wholly incorrect. The process was in my case started by questions arising from life experiences. The journey has been aided by logic and study of the bible itself.

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After Jerusalem: Where Scholarship Ends and the Tourist Trade Begins there was as is usual a Question and Answer. The question is from a Disciples of Christ minister about petitionary prayer. That is a question that brings theological discussion down to the personal level. This is where I find it in my everyday life. I still remember with fondness the first time when prayer and supposed answers to prayer came to conscious thought. I related to a friend how I felt that an answer to a prayer of mine about a very ill relative had been answered. My friend then asked why God ignored other prayers for similar situations. I had no answer then and still have none. It is quite one thing to debate the virgin birth, what Jesus really said, and the details of his life. It is quite another thing to pray “in Jesus’ name” after I became aware that I am a heretic Arian.

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Lately, I also have been thinking what it means to consider myself as following a tradition that has at times been anti-Semitic, racist, sexist and homophobic. Still is among many Christians today. Oh yeah, I forgot the warmongering. It isn’t all negative of course. There is also much to be admired in our long tradition. And many Christians have devoted their lives to doing God’s work as they see it. Mother Teresa comes to mind immediately. Sometimes when I think of the good and bad in Christianity I consider churches in Hitler’s Germany. The contrast there is quite blinding with Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer (along with other members of the Confessing Church) standing in opposition to other Christians that supported the Nazis.

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The basic question is does my answers (to questions about theology and tradition) have any meaning to my everyday life. I refuse to take the easy (according to Spong) road and become an Atheist (or Muslim, Buddhist or convert to Judaism). I did in my journey leave the Episcopal Church and become a Methodist but that move had absolutely nothing to do with theology. Fortunately I found Asbury UMC where both the theology and the social action are in line with my beliefs. Then again I am totally aghast at SMU becoming the home to the Bush presidential library. Just as I am faced with a range of Christians (of all times and places) having beliefs I find reprehensible I am faced with the same situation in the denomination I belong to. Worse than the divergent beliefs are the actions I find decidedly un-Christian. I find no comfort in thinking that they would probably find mine equally objectionable.

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Bishop Spong may find difficulty in Jerusalem with his beliefs; I find mine here at home. And, most of the time I don’t have any answers for the questions.

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I would like to think that had I lived in Nazi Germany that I would have dissented. But, would I have? What would I do if Arian’s were hunted down again?

Ralph and the Lake of Fire

This morning in worship I offered a reflection picking up on the spirit of Affirmation 9 of the Phoenix
Affirmations, called “Ralph and the Lake of Fire.”  The story is based on one written years ago by Bruce Van Blair which I have revised several times and presented in various ways.  It concerns the surprising events that transpire with 43-yr-old Ralph after he dies.

You can read the full text of the reflection by clicking here: ralph and the lake of fire.  Then, post your thoughts!  I’ll be happy to respond to questions and comments.

An audio version from this morning will be posted shortly at www.countrysideucc.org/sermons.