Okay, so when I first saw stuff referencing this, I thought it was a hoax. There's no way that anyone would hand an Uzi on full auto to a nine year old girl, but apparently there was. It was the last error in judgment that he will ever make, but it was not a lone ranger moment of stupidity, there is a whole culture of messed up stuff to blame.
Look, I've said before, I have no problem with guns, I have a couple, but I also have a nine year old girl, and I am aware of her relative limitations as much as I am of the guns deadly potential. Thus my shotguns are trigger locked, unloaded and stored in an entirely different location from the ammunition for said weapons. This means, I suppose, that I will not be able to employ them as a means of defense, should someone break into my castle. They will just have to deal with a 300 lb, knife-wielding maniac in his underwear, I ask you honestly to consider which is more terrifying. But I do not have to worry that my daughter will somehow decide to play with Daddy's guns and shoot herself (or her brother) in the face.
There are, of course, the horrendous Devil's Rejects sorts of incidents, where a real bad guy or two decides to capture and torture a family. And I suppose there are at least a few of those moments that are prevented by a well-trained adult with a handgun, but those black and white sorts of events are few and far between. What is far more common are the grey area incidents, where a frightened person shoots a drunken neighbor or even worse, one of their own children who got out of bed to go to the bathroom. And let's be honest here, gun or no, when you think someone's breaking into your house in the middle of the night you're going to be scared out of your mind. Fear does not do good things to human judgment, and thus a scared person is a dangerous person, and a scared person with a gun is an extremely dangerous person.
There are differences of opinion on the efficacy and necessity of firearms for self defense, but the whole argument seems tangential when I consider my own children. There is no scenario, even in the most extreme hypothetical position that I would hand my daughter a freaking Uzi set to full auto. Full grown men have can be ill prepared for the amount of recoil from a 9mm handgun, let alone a sub-machine gun. If you watch the carefully edited video of the Uzi event, you will notice that that little girl was really close to shooting herself in the face as well as the instructor. As it is it's almost unavoidable that that little girl is going to need years of psychiatric care in order to deal with that moment when something slipped out of her hands.
The point is that it was something that never should have been in her hands. Places like Guns N Burgers, should not exist in a sane civilization. No matter what your opinion on the issue of guns in general, we need a moment of sanity to take a deep breath and consider our idolatry, because we're sacrificing more children on that altar than the Canaanites did to Moloch.
How many kid's lives is your "right" to bear arms really worth? I'm including that little girl, because her life is going to be really screwed up for a very long time.
Why is every attempt to make owning a gun at least as documented a process as owning a car seen as an attack on our freedom?
Because someone told us it was. Just like that gun instructor probably told that little girl's parents: "don't worry, it's perfectly safe."
We need to stop this obsession.
Our guns are not more important than our children.
You can have both, just please, keep them separate.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
What If?
If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, leave peaceably with all.
Romans 12: 18
I'm going to engage in a moment of unbridled hope. It's a rare occurrence, because the world gives me very little evidence to support optimism, particularly when it comes to human behavior. We are afflicted by racism and prejudice so systemic and pervasive that many of us choose to deny that it even exists. We are convinced daily that self-interest and therefore selfishness is the only true driving force in the world. We cannot see that there is really any alternative to the endless cycles of violence, and therefore our search for security leads us only to the accumulation of power in the hopes of holding the violence at bay.
Sorry, I said I was going to be hopeful, it's difficult to say the least.
Can you imagine a world where all people who claim to have faith in a certain God, actually took the prescription of that Creator seriously? That would mean, Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, because we all share parts of the same book, a book that prescribes basically two rules: love God and love each other. Whatever other things we might find in the book, and our various favorite appendices, all of the big three agree on those two. If we set the love God part to the side for one moment, you could even bring in the Hindu and Buddhist folks and probably a handful of other random religions that are based on the basic ethics of not treating other people like big piles of manure.
Imagine a world where we took this as seriously as we take various definitions of sin and trying to judge who is in and who is out. It puts that stupid John Lennon song to shame (you don't need to get rid of all the religions, you just need them to start acting their age).
So why don't we take this stuff more seriously?
Literal types who want to hold on to all sorts of abominations, and fight and protest and schism, are you doing everything you can to live peaceably with all?
Liberal folks who like a forgiving God, are you really trying everything you can to live peaceably with all? What about those fundamentalists who keep bugging you?
I'm not even saying that we somehow need to do this perfectly, I know, ain't none of us perfect. I am saying that we could try a little harder than we are.
We need to stop making excuses and pretending like we're just making the best of a bad situation, because we're not. We're blaming our enemies and saying we can't live peaceably because, basically, "they're just a bunch of big stupid-heads."
Notice that this a unilateral command, it says nothing about expecting the "enemy" to behave themselves. We can make peace a one-sided equation, as Ghandi and MLK tried very hard to demonstrate. It is possible, it's always possible, it is just really difficult sometimes.
Paul gives us more than a little bit of wiggle room, so that we really can't make the excuse that it's just an impossible goal. "If it's possible, so far as it depends on you..." That's a good amount of weasel space. After all, you could interpret that as: "just don't pick a fight, but once it's on, let the claws come out." That appears to be the way that most of us approach it, if we approach it at all.
Christ-likeness is all good and fine until the cross starts to loom on the horizon, then it starts to seem like maybe we should try something different.
"Get thee behind me, Satan." I'm trying to be optimistic here.
But the fact of the matter is, that when I start to try and think about how to love my neighbor, and live peaceably with all, the reality of all the exceptions starts to close in around me. I start to think of all the good and practical reasons why this really isn't a tenable plan of action. There are people who would like to shoot me, rob me, blow me up and otherwise not be very good neighbors. How am I supposed to "love" them?
This is where Paul is so great at giving us that room to deal with reality: you don't actually have to love them, you just have to act like you do, in other words, treat them as though they were not your enemy. If they're hungry, give them food, if they're thirsty, give them drink. You don't have to be stupid about it, but you should always seek to be kind and hospitable. Is that asking too much?
God seems to think not.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
What Now?
So I started off this morning reading this. My first response was to get a little angry. It was a throwback response really, back to my earlier days, when I used to think that Christian Faith was a flag to be flown, and a tower to be defended against the infidel. But as the article unfolded, I felt the author's hurt for sure, but I found myself having a hard time feeling the good old outrage. Understanding that "the Gospel is as unstoppable as it is unacceptable," was a bit of a comfort to be sure. I am a fan of how this author has contextualized and dealt with what was obviously a rather traumatic time for her. Recovering the counter-cultural impact of the Gospel is perhaps the most important thing that we American Christians need to do.
Unfortunately, and here's where I'm going to poke a bit further, we probably cannot do that if we continue to hold on to our privileged position. As much as it seems like an injustice to have Intervarsity and other Christian student groups lose their "official" status, I think that is exactly what needs to happen. I will admit that I am biased, as a young adult, coming out of a lifetime of church involvement, I very briefly explored the world of campus Christianity, and quite frankly I found it lame. If you liked it, please don't jump down my throat, I'm glad you found it helpful to your walk, but allow me to explain. I am not really much of a joiner. In fact, I consider the fact that I have been called to serve as a pastor (read leader), as not just an adept use of my talents and gifts, but as a concession to the fact that I would make a lousy church member. If I attended at all, I would be cranky and non-committal, I know it, and so God has put me in this place perhaps because I have empathy for cranky and non-committal people.
I serve an institution, but I have these dreams of serving a community of disciples, united by more than just a need to pay the bills and run some programs. So when I got to the place where Tish described what happened at Vanderbilt in the end; the fellowship of Christians did not dissolve or go away, it just stopped being an "official" institution of the university. Kids started wearing T-shirts that said simply: "We Are Here."
Jumpin' Jehosophat, how perfect is that?
No smarmy messages about getting saved, or WWJD, just a reminder that the person wearing that shirt was part of something. And in what I remember of my College self-awareness that would have been a lot more of an effective hook to get me interested. The fact of the matter is, they probably didn't change what they did all that much. Their group was probably still "pizza and the Bible," but embracing their place as a group that stood outside the culture? Those politically paranoid university administrators couldn't have done those kids a bigger solid in terms of fostering their Christian walk.
Inertia is no secret, an object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force, also an object at rest tends to stay at rest. The Status Quo most often represents a point of equilibrium. Things have settled the way they are for a reason. The reasons may be good, bad or ambivalent, but the Newtonian rule applies in all cases, change takes effort, and the only easy change is probably not worth it. As Wendell Berry says in one of his sabbath poems: "Wrong was easy, gravity helped it."
I understand the grief that people feel as they watch the world change around them. I understand that after over a thousand years of Christendom, it's hard to watch our beloved Church fall from the pinnacle of power, and become a sordid sideshow of conflicted, broken people.
Except for the fact that we probably never should have occupied that pinnacle in the first place.
And the fear of losing what we probably never should had in the first place has led to a lot of bad behavior.
Conservatism makes sense, until it doesn't. Trying to hold on to an equilibrium point is not an ignoble effort, until it crosses the line of sanity and becomes the repeated attempt to try the same thing, expecting different results.
I often get "helpful suggestions" on what our church could, and perhaps should do. Ideas that are seen and read about, churches that have "magically" started to climb back out of decline and into vitality. I enjoy reading about these ideas, they feed my dream of a church that runs wide open. But as the shepherd of the church as it is, I know there are lines that cannot be crossed at the moment. There is anxiety that must be dealt with, and as much as I would like to say, "pshaw" to the anxiety, I know that is not an available option.
A trend that I have noticed among revolutionary churches is that their revolution happened when the church was forced to stare down their own mortality and realize that if they didn't change, they were going to die, like a smoker who only quits when the first cancer spots show up on their lungs.
As a pastor who cares about the good creation that his church is right now, I do not want to see people in that position. But my own desire to run the machine well does sometimes get in the way of seeing a new possibility, particularly when it comes from the margins. What I try to do is be permission giving and supportive of people who have ideas, which means saying, "that's a great idea, how do WE do it?" Emphasizing the WE.
Keeping the institution going is a full time job, it's designed to be that way, just as it's designed to hold onto that functional equilibrium. But if you want to grow, the machine has to change, the institution is going to have to split open somewhere.
So here's a message church: if you want to grow, you're going to have to change. And you're the ones who are going to have to do it. Your pastor, if he or she is any good at taking care of you, might throw down the challenge to grow, but they won't force you into it. They won't force you into it for the same reason God won't force you to accept love and grace, because they value who you are. But they also see who you can be, and they want very much for you to grow into that.
In the Jesus model, the disciples never feel quite ready or up to the challenge, they are always a little too invested in the status quo, because it's comfortable. Being counter-cultural feels too much like swimming upstream, and it comes with all sorts of baggage and maybe even some persecution, but that's the road we're called to walk, isn't it?
Unfortunately, and here's where I'm going to poke a bit further, we probably cannot do that if we continue to hold on to our privileged position. As much as it seems like an injustice to have Intervarsity and other Christian student groups lose their "official" status, I think that is exactly what needs to happen. I will admit that I am biased, as a young adult, coming out of a lifetime of church involvement, I very briefly explored the world of campus Christianity, and quite frankly I found it lame. If you liked it, please don't jump down my throat, I'm glad you found it helpful to your walk, but allow me to explain. I am not really much of a joiner. In fact, I consider the fact that I have been called to serve as a pastor (read leader), as not just an adept use of my talents and gifts, but as a concession to the fact that I would make a lousy church member. If I attended at all, I would be cranky and non-committal, I know it, and so God has put me in this place perhaps because I have empathy for cranky and non-committal people.
I serve an institution, but I have these dreams of serving a community of disciples, united by more than just a need to pay the bills and run some programs. So when I got to the place where Tish described what happened at Vanderbilt in the end; the fellowship of Christians did not dissolve or go away, it just stopped being an "official" institution of the university. Kids started wearing T-shirts that said simply: "We Are Here."
Jumpin' Jehosophat, how perfect is that?
No smarmy messages about getting saved, or WWJD, just a reminder that the person wearing that shirt was part of something. And in what I remember of my College self-awareness that would have been a lot more of an effective hook to get me interested. The fact of the matter is, they probably didn't change what they did all that much. Their group was probably still "pizza and the Bible," but embracing their place as a group that stood outside the culture? Those politically paranoid university administrators couldn't have done those kids a bigger solid in terms of fostering their Christian walk.
Inertia is no secret, an object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force, also an object at rest tends to stay at rest. The Status Quo most often represents a point of equilibrium. Things have settled the way they are for a reason. The reasons may be good, bad or ambivalent, but the Newtonian rule applies in all cases, change takes effort, and the only easy change is probably not worth it. As Wendell Berry says in one of his sabbath poems: "Wrong was easy, gravity helped it."
I understand the grief that people feel as they watch the world change around them. I understand that after over a thousand years of Christendom, it's hard to watch our beloved Church fall from the pinnacle of power, and become a sordid sideshow of conflicted, broken people.
Except for the fact that we probably never should have occupied that pinnacle in the first place.
And the fear of losing what we probably never should had in the first place has led to a lot of bad behavior.
Conservatism makes sense, until it doesn't. Trying to hold on to an equilibrium point is not an ignoble effort, until it crosses the line of sanity and becomes the repeated attempt to try the same thing, expecting different results.
I often get "helpful suggestions" on what our church could, and perhaps should do. Ideas that are seen and read about, churches that have "magically" started to climb back out of decline and into vitality. I enjoy reading about these ideas, they feed my dream of a church that runs wide open. But as the shepherd of the church as it is, I know there are lines that cannot be crossed at the moment. There is anxiety that must be dealt with, and as much as I would like to say, "pshaw" to the anxiety, I know that is not an available option.
A trend that I have noticed among revolutionary churches is that their revolution happened when the church was forced to stare down their own mortality and realize that if they didn't change, they were going to die, like a smoker who only quits when the first cancer spots show up on their lungs.
As a pastor who cares about the good creation that his church is right now, I do not want to see people in that position. But my own desire to run the machine well does sometimes get in the way of seeing a new possibility, particularly when it comes from the margins. What I try to do is be permission giving and supportive of people who have ideas, which means saying, "that's a great idea, how do WE do it?" Emphasizing the WE.
Keeping the institution going is a full time job, it's designed to be that way, just as it's designed to hold onto that functional equilibrium. But if you want to grow, the machine has to change, the institution is going to have to split open somewhere.
So here's a message church: if you want to grow, you're going to have to change. And you're the ones who are going to have to do it. Your pastor, if he or she is any good at taking care of you, might throw down the challenge to grow, but they won't force you into it. They won't force you into it for the same reason God won't force you to accept love and grace, because they value who you are. But they also see who you can be, and they want very much for you to grow into that.
In the Jesus model, the disciples never feel quite ready or up to the challenge, they are always a little too invested in the status quo, because it's comfortable. Being counter-cultural feels too much like swimming upstream, and it comes with all sorts of baggage and maybe even some persecution, but that's the road we're called to walk, isn't it?
Monday, August 25, 2014
Postscript
Preachers play Monday morning quarterback too. Sometimes we sit around thinking about things we really shouldn't have said, but other times there are things that sort of show up unbidden in between Sunday afternoon naps, or maybe even during them.
I preached on the text from Matthew called "Peter's Declaration," where Peter says that Jesus is, "The Messiah, the Son of the Living God," and Jesus tells them all to keep it a secret. Oh yeah, and I talked quite a bit about Doctor Who. Since I'm a big fan of Jesus, and also of the Doctor, there was just so much material to sort through, some of it inevitably had to be trimmed out. My thoughts centered around the question of identity. Lately, the story of the Doctor has really been hitting that hard. As I watched the re-runs of the past few seasons, which BBC America was so kindly running pretty much 24-7 last week leading up the first episode featuring Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, I found myself getting more and more geeked up about Who in general, but also about the little wrinkles of thought that surrounded the issue of identity.
See, Timelords choose their name, the one they want to be called by random people. Over the course of the 50 years of the show, you learn that many Gallifrean words do not translate into other languages. Timelords are just special that way. Therefore, rather than constantly trying to tell people a Gallifrean name, the Gallifreans who travel out into the universe, through space and time pick names that do, which are defined by function. The Doctor, the Master, the Corsair, the Rani (a Hindi queen), are a few of the travelling Timelords you run into during the course of the show (notice none of them lack for self confidence). Recently the writers of the show have turned to unraveling the meaning behind why the Doctor chose the Doctor as a moniker. It's because he's the one who fixes things and saves people, and helps when there is need. He has a Gallifrean name, they all do, like Rassalon, one of the important historical figures in the history of the Timelords, but that name is ultimately not as important as the self-selected, character-defining name. It's sort of like the names taken by certain Native American Tribes, where someone's character is reflected in the name they are given as an adult, rather than being stuck with what their parents might have chosen to call them as a child (former Bubba here, calling that a really good idea).
And yet I wonder if maybe, when it comes to Jesus, we're not missing something really beautiful in our rush to define him by his function. We are very quick to leap to the title: Messiah, Christ, Savior, Lamb of God, Son of Man, Son of the Living God, and so on and so forth. Do we forget that his mother probably just called him Yeshua? And what is the significance of that?
We Christians talk quite a bit about having a "relationship" with God in Christ, but having a relationship based on a functional role has certain limits. I share certain very intimate details of my life with my physician, however, that relationship will always be a different sort of intimacy than what I share with my wife. While there are times when God seems to function as a doctor of sorts, the images that seem to dominate are much more intimate than that. We like to keep God at arms length, perhaps because we fear the sort of terrible vulnerability that might come from allowing an all powerful God into such close proximity.
The Doctor often comes across as being a very lonely creature, because he is the last of the Timelords, there is even one scene where he practically begs his mad antagonist, the Master to just give up the megalomania and they can go hang out, but of course megalomaniacs are not prone to take that sort of invitation to chill. The Doctor always has companions, but there are definite lines that must be drawn, as we have found out in recent seasons, for the protection of the humans.
The rather interesting thing about Jesus though is that he doesn't draw those lines very often. Sure he warns the disciples that following him might be a bit troublesome at times, but still he calls them and invites them into the same journey: to take up the cross.
The Doctor is mostly a single-handed save the day sort, but every once in a while, he calls on a little help from his friends, usually when the situation is most dire. He is not averse to self-sacrifice but he is fiercely protective of his friends, which always sets up a sort of paternalistic dynamic. He can't always protect them perfectly, but he would still have them around for adventures, but most of the time it's worth the risk, until it isn't and then the companions go away and "break his heart."
The Jesus model is a bit different, he invites us into the adventure for sure, but there is absolutely no guarantee that it's going to be safe. He willingly, in fact, I would say specifically and purposefully, gives us the main role. He knows that we're not super-heroic. He knows all of our faults, and yet we are called nonetheless.
Faith is not designed for fictional relationships, or for lop-sided relationships with a functionary God. Functionary gods are idols, you can go to them like you go to a doctor or an accountant: devotion and/or sacrifice for a certain set of metaphysical and/or supernatural services. In order for that to work though, we have to be able to simplify those gods in a way that is not possible or desirable to do with an actual living breathing person. However, if you make your gods two dimensional, how are you ever going to see the majority of humanity as anything else?
Sure you can have a relationship with a two dimensional being. I feel like I have known the Doctor all my life, even though his face keeps changing. It's not quite the same as having a relationship with a Living God though. That's what we're shooting for, a real, living relationship with a real living God. It's kind of dangerous actually. That's probably why so many people prefer to find their glimpse of transcendence in a safer package.
The devotion that you can observe in crowds of people, for Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Twilight, Harry Potter, pick your favorite fandom, would probably be much more constructively channeled into an actual relationship with God, but we, as the church, have failed rather tragically to adequately describe our journey together in those terms. We make it about rules and doctrine, instead of about adventure. We make it seem like something we do out of a sense of guilt rather than a rabid excitement.
I have to admit, I have rarely had the same feeling of anticipation and excitement about a worship service as I had about Saturday night's premiere of Doctor Who, and I feel like that's a question begging for an answer: why not? Why do I not expect a real relationship with God to be as exciting as a TV show?
That's a question that I need to answer. That's a question the Church needs to answer. But I think we're a little afraid to even ask it, because it makes us look bad. It admits that we're not really as super-spiritual as we might want others to think. It admits that, maybe, the way things are and "always" have been is not really cutting the mustard. It challenges us to change, it opens the door on a new adventure, but we're not sure we can trust it.
Following Jesus is not safe, or easy. It's a practice that should and will consume your life. If we make it anything less, we are not really following the Living God, we're following some sort of vague facsimile, and who really wants to do that?
I think churches need to be like the TARDIS (The Doctor's blue box: stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space). A sign of hope, and adventure, of help when you need it and always an invitation to a journey. They need to be bigger on the inside, and they need to put us in touch with all of time, and space and creation. They can each have their own personality, and sometimes that might be a little quirky. They may not always take you where you want to go, but they will take you where you need to go, seriously, that's a thing that the TARDIS told the Doctor in an episode when she got to be a person.
Sometimes fiction tells the truth.
I preached on the text from Matthew called "Peter's Declaration," where Peter says that Jesus is, "The Messiah, the Son of the Living God," and Jesus tells them all to keep it a secret. Oh yeah, and I talked quite a bit about Doctor Who. Since I'm a big fan of Jesus, and also of the Doctor, there was just so much material to sort through, some of it inevitably had to be trimmed out. My thoughts centered around the question of identity. Lately, the story of the Doctor has really been hitting that hard. As I watched the re-runs of the past few seasons, which BBC America was so kindly running pretty much 24-7 last week leading up the first episode featuring Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, I found myself getting more and more geeked up about Who in general, but also about the little wrinkles of thought that surrounded the issue of identity.
See, Timelords choose their name, the one they want to be called by random people. Over the course of the 50 years of the show, you learn that many Gallifrean words do not translate into other languages. Timelords are just special that way. Therefore, rather than constantly trying to tell people a Gallifrean name, the Gallifreans who travel out into the universe, through space and time pick names that do, which are defined by function. The Doctor, the Master, the Corsair, the Rani (a Hindi queen), are a few of the travelling Timelords you run into during the course of the show (notice none of them lack for self confidence). Recently the writers of the show have turned to unraveling the meaning behind why the Doctor chose the Doctor as a moniker. It's because he's the one who fixes things and saves people, and helps when there is need. He has a Gallifrean name, they all do, like Rassalon, one of the important historical figures in the history of the Timelords, but that name is ultimately not as important as the self-selected, character-defining name. It's sort of like the names taken by certain Native American Tribes, where someone's character is reflected in the name they are given as an adult, rather than being stuck with what their parents might have chosen to call them as a child (former Bubba here, calling that a really good idea).
And yet I wonder if maybe, when it comes to Jesus, we're not missing something really beautiful in our rush to define him by his function. We are very quick to leap to the title: Messiah, Christ, Savior, Lamb of God, Son of Man, Son of the Living God, and so on and so forth. Do we forget that his mother probably just called him Yeshua? And what is the significance of that?
We Christians talk quite a bit about having a "relationship" with God in Christ, but having a relationship based on a functional role has certain limits. I share certain very intimate details of my life with my physician, however, that relationship will always be a different sort of intimacy than what I share with my wife. While there are times when God seems to function as a doctor of sorts, the images that seem to dominate are much more intimate than that. We like to keep God at arms length, perhaps because we fear the sort of terrible vulnerability that might come from allowing an all powerful God into such close proximity.
The Doctor often comes across as being a very lonely creature, because he is the last of the Timelords, there is even one scene where he practically begs his mad antagonist, the Master to just give up the megalomania and they can go hang out, but of course megalomaniacs are not prone to take that sort of invitation to chill. The Doctor always has companions, but there are definite lines that must be drawn, as we have found out in recent seasons, for the protection of the humans.
The rather interesting thing about Jesus though is that he doesn't draw those lines very often. Sure he warns the disciples that following him might be a bit troublesome at times, but still he calls them and invites them into the same journey: to take up the cross.
The Doctor is mostly a single-handed save the day sort, but every once in a while, he calls on a little help from his friends, usually when the situation is most dire. He is not averse to self-sacrifice but he is fiercely protective of his friends, which always sets up a sort of paternalistic dynamic. He can't always protect them perfectly, but he would still have them around for adventures, but most of the time it's worth the risk, until it isn't and then the companions go away and "break his heart."
The Jesus model is a bit different, he invites us into the adventure for sure, but there is absolutely no guarantee that it's going to be safe. He willingly, in fact, I would say specifically and purposefully, gives us the main role. He knows that we're not super-heroic. He knows all of our faults, and yet we are called nonetheless.
Faith is not designed for fictional relationships, or for lop-sided relationships with a functionary God. Functionary gods are idols, you can go to them like you go to a doctor or an accountant: devotion and/or sacrifice for a certain set of metaphysical and/or supernatural services. In order for that to work though, we have to be able to simplify those gods in a way that is not possible or desirable to do with an actual living breathing person. However, if you make your gods two dimensional, how are you ever going to see the majority of humanity as anything else?
Sure you can have a relationship with a two dimensional being. I feel like I have known the Doctor all my life, even though his face keeps changing. It's not quite the same as having a relationship with a Living God though. That's what we're shooting for, a real, living relationship with a real living God. It's kind of dangerous actually. That's probably why so many people prefer to find their glimpse of transcendence in a safer package.
The devotion that you can observe in crowds of people, for Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Twilight, Harry Potter, pick your favorite fandom, would probably be much more constructively channeled into an actual relationship with God, but we, as the church, have failed rather tragically to adequately describe our journey together in those terms. We make it about rules and doctrine, instead of about adventure. We make it seem like something we do out of a sense of guilt rather than a rabid excitement.
I have to admit, I have rarely had the same feeling of anticipation and excitement about a worship service as I had about Saturday night's premiere of Doctor Who, and I feel like that's a question begging for an answer: why not? Why do I not expect a real relationship with God to be as exciting as a TV show?
That's a question that I need to answer. That's a question the Church needs to answer. But I think we're a little afraid to even ask it, because it makes us look bad. It admits that we're not really as super-spiritual as we might want others to think. It admits that, maybe, the way things are and "always" have been is not really cutting the mustard. It challenges us to change, it opens the door on a new adventure, but we're not sure we can trust it.
Following Jesus is not safe, or easy. It's a practice that should and will consume your life. If we make it anything less, we are not really following the Living God, we're following some sort of vague facsimile, and who really wants to do that?
I think churches need to be like the TARDIS (The Doctor's blue box: stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space). A sign of hope, and adventure, of help when you need it and always an invitation to a journey. They need to be bigger on the inside, and they need to put us in touch with all of time, and space and creation. They can each have their own personality, and sometimes that might be a little quirky. They may not always take you where you want to go, but they will take you where you need to go, seriously, that's a thing that the TARDIS told the Doctor in an episode when she got to be a person.
Sometimes fiction tells the truth.
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Why I Hate the Phrase: Like Minded
For if you love those who love you,
What reward do you have?
-Matthew 5: 46a
As it turns out, I'm also dealing with some Presbyterian Post Traumatic Stress (PPTS), you heard it here first. A few years ago, I was serving in rural Pennsylvania, in a fairly conservative congregation. Which was not really a problem at the start, as I came out of Seminary full of what I believed to be orthodoxy and righteousness. For the first few years I was perfectly happy proclaiming the standard evangelical interpretations of the Gospels and trying to keep my head down as far as what was going on in the PC(USA). For the most part, I just didn't get involved, I had enough on my plate, what with having two kids and trying to grow into a functional pastor and become a part of a small community. But then my brother's drug addiction started to kick in to full swing, and eventually he died of an overdose, and I got a big old kick in my self-righteousness and started to wrestle with the idea of grace and costly love, or love and costly grace, however you want to order those words. It was the beginning of a big swing for me, but I suppose it was not very visible on the outside.
At some point, I got a call from the pastor of the largest church in the Presbytery. For those of you not familiar with Presbytery dynamics: a young pastor from a <100 member congregation is pretty much like a member of the chess club and the "tall steeple" pastors are like the captains of the football team. So I was pretty much happy to be noticed, and he said something like, "we're having a get together of 'like-minded' pastors to talk about strategies and responses to what might happen at General Assembly." At that point, "like-minded," was a phrase that was being thrown around an awful lot in conservative circles. It was circle the wagons time, and you needed to get the posse together.
I went, and it was a really heady experience, most of the power-players in the Presbytery were there, including the one person in the Presbytery that was truly a source of wisdom and encouragement for my entire tenure there. We talked and we talked some more. In hindsight, the one man I truly should have looked to for guidance, didn't say much, and I should have probably learned from that, and from the fact that later he said that I shouldn't get too wound up about that group. I was too young and excited to really hear what he had to say, after all, wasn't he "like-minded" too?
Yes and no. He was generally conservative, but he had been around way too long to think that good things were going to come from this sort of cabal.
To make a long story short, as my left-ward swing continued, eventually I stopped getting invited to these gatherings of the like-minded. Now, I only knew about them because of my colleague, who was now becoming more like my mentor. Now, I found myself at odds with a lot of what my colleagues from that gathering were saying and doing. I wasn't getting lunch invites from the tall steeples any more. And yeah, that kind of hurt, and yeah it brought back all sorts of "I'm a high school nerd," type of feelings, and it made me feel more and more at odds with everything that was going on in the larger church.
Fast forward a few years, and now I've been around long enough to become chair of a committee and thus sit on Presbytery Council, and then I get roped into being chair of a committee to deal with dismissing one of the Presbytery's congregations to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. Now I have to be in Captain Picard mode (which means diplomatic for you non-trek types). Now I have to deal rationally and attempt to be compassionate for a congregation that is in full schism, which mistrusts the Presbytery and which is pretty angry and defensive from the get go.
Somehow or other, I have now become the most liberal guy in the room, and I have to put my money where my mouth is, in terms of compassion, and dialogue, and building trust, and being gracious. And I did it, I think pretty well. We accomplished the separation, complete with a worship service to hand things over to reps from the EPC, and we had coffee and cookies together afterwards.
But I will never again be able to hear the phrase: "like-minded" or "on the same page" without getting a little shiver of discomfort. Because I no longer believe that segregating ourselves based on preferences or affinity is a desirable state of affairs for humanity, especially not for Christians. Segregation allows us to maintain our stereotypes, prejudices and eventually leads to fear and hatred. Whether you're talking about race relations or ecclesial disagreements, you need to hear from people who are different from you, and you need to listen to them and try to love them. To do otherwise leads you down path to intolerance and fundamentalism.
Which is probably the main reason why Jesus repeatedly insisted that his disciples at least look at people who were outside their comfort zone, even going so far as to tell them to love their enemies.
Maybe that's not the only thing that he taught, but in such a time as this, it is perhaps the lesson that I am struggling with the most.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Journalism: "I'm not dead yet!"
I have to admit it, I had an ax to grind with journalists for a long time. I think it started in high school sometime and was probably a result of some really bad portrayals of journalists in various fictional scenarios. Maybe it was a trend of some sort, but in the 1980's it seemed like reporters were always portrayed as pushy and driven sorts who mostly just ended up getting in the way (think Lois Lane in the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie). Reporters were either sharks who smelled blood in the water, or incompetent talking heads who got their place by being pretty. I wonder if it had something to do with the fact that television was taking over for print journalism, and with the transfer to a visual, rather than a written medium, priority was being given to good looks rather than journalistic integrity.
There was definitely a time when it seemed like the main requirements for a TV news person were a good head of hair and a winning smile. By the 1990's it would have been laughable to put someone as ugly as Walter Cronkite on TV. I suppose that is changing, inasmuch as I still see TV news accidentally, there are some people who do not appear to be animated Barbie and Ken dolls, but the stereotype of journalists as pushy and often intrusive is still alive and well.
I have personally dealt with news people who were trying to cover several rather tragic incidents in the community, and I know, there is still that odor of a sensational story that can create a frenzy of curiosity that leads the people supplying the coverage of those events to act in ways that violate some basic human principles. Very inappropriate requests can be and often are made in the name of getting the scoop, and often speculation and conjecture gets reported as truth, and in these cases people can get hurt.
But there are times when journalists rise up and become the voice of the people, which is the noble calling at the heart of what they do. The journalists who are in the fray in Ferguson are giving us a really top flight picture of the real ambiguity of the situation there, with some sympathy for both the protesters and the police, but with a definite edge in the direction of driving away the haze that would allow the authorities who are being questioned to operate with impunity.
And we have the case of James Foley, who was executed by the Muslim regime in Iraq and Syria, as some sort of twisted proof that they are the servants of Allah. Meanwhile, most of the Muslim world recoils in horror, because they are pretty sure that serving Allah has nothing to do with beheading people. It is significant that Foley was a journalist, because it is almost always the case that corrupt and wicked powers hate anyone who tells the truth. If you find yourself persecuting journalists, then you probably ought to check yourself, because you are probably afraid of the truth. This goes for corrupt governments and for the guy who had the "I don't believe the liberal media" bumper sticker on his truck.
It's important to distinguish actual journalists from pundits and opinion-casters. Journalists report on what is happening, sometimes with a commentary on what it means or how to interpret the facts. Pundits present their opinions and only present the facts that endorse their opinion. Do journalists have biases? Yes, they do, they're human beings, and no one really believes in the false idol of pure objectivity anymore. But for a journalist a bias is something to be recognized and balanced. For a pundit a bias is their raison d'etre, and this makes an awful lot of difference in how you process what they are saying.
Unfortunately for all of us, television doesn't do us the solid of clearly noting who is a journalist and who is a pundit. Newspapers (remember them?) kindly put opinions on the editorial page and label them clearly as such, in fact they get the stink eye from other newspapers when they blur the lines.
The Interweb is even worse than TV, because here there is absolutely no accountability whatsoever. I don't have to run this blog by an editor, and I can say anything I want. Most people who read what I have to say will notice that I'm just some guy who likes to bloviate about random stuff. I don't have my feet on the ground of any particular situation and thus, my opinion is worth about as much as it costs to read this blog, which is basically just an investment of time, not money.
All of us have had to learn how to process information in the electronic age. We have learned to consider the source, fact check and perhaps even to reserve judgment. It is a peculiar thing, in an age when we can get the "facts" so quickly that we must now learn to wait to find out if those "facts" are actually facts. You might notice, if you've been reading this blog for a while, that I very rarely write about something that is "breaking news." Current? Yes, but I never just fire off a gut reaction to some headline or another, because headlines are deceptive, sensational and often worthy of hitting the trash bin. Learn about how the Interweb works, about terms like "clickbait" and actually think about how and why people are putting out the kind of misleading or downright false information that gets around so quickly.
It's because we want it. We want Fox News and CNN to blow up about the latest sensational thing that's happening. The National Enquirer polluted "news" stands for so long because enough people actually wanted to read about werewolves and bat-people secretly living in the sewers of Boise. People Magazine exists because someone cares about Kim-Ye and whether or not Katy Perry wore underwear to the latest exercise in self-congratulation.
That doesn't mean it's journalism. Journalism gets in the clouds of tear gas. Journalism gets arrested. Journalism sometimes gets beheaded. Because Journalism is dangerous stuff, because the truth is a powerful thing, and because, while we may want bloated opinions, fear mongering and sensationalism, what we really need is someone to tell our story, warts and all.
There was definitely a time when it seemed like the main requirements for a TV news person were a good head of hair and a winning smile. By the 1990's it would have been laughable to put someone as ugly as Walter Cronkite on TV. I suppose that is changing, inasmuch as I still see TV news accidentally, there are some people who do not appear to be animated Barbie and Ken dolls, but the stereotype of journalists as pushy and often intrusive is still alive and well.
I have personally dealt with news people who were trying to cover several rather tragic incidents in the community, and I know, there is still that odor of a sensational story that can create a frenzy of curiosity that leads the people supplying the coverage of those events to act in ways that violate some basic human principles. Very inappropriate requests can be and often are made in the name of getting the scoop, and often speculation and conjecture gets reported as truth, and in these cases people can get hurt.
But there are times when journalists rise up and become the voice of the people, which is the noble calling at the heart of what they do. The journalists who are in the fray in Ferguson are giving us a really top flight picture of the real ambiguity of the situation there, with some sympathy for both the protesters and the police, but with a definite edge in the direction of driving away the haze that would allow the authorities who are being questioned to operate with impunity.
And we have the case of James Foley, who was executed by the Muslim regime in Iraq and Syria, as some sort of twisted proof that they are the servants of Allah. Meanwhile, most of the Muslim world recoils in horror, because they are pretty sure that serving Allah has nothing to do with beheading people. It is significant that Foley was a journalist, because it is almost always the case that corrupt and wicked powers hate anyone who tells the truth. If you find yourself persecuting journalists, then you probably ought to check yourself, because you are probably afraid of the truth. This goes for corrupt governments and for the guy who had the "I don't believe the liberal media" bumper sticker on his truck.
It's important to distinguish actual journalists from pundits and opinion-casters. Journalists report on what is happening, sometimes with a commentary on what it means or how to interpret the facts. Pundits present their opinions and only present the facts that endorse their opinion. Do journalists have biases? Yes, they do, they're human beings, and no one really believes in the false idol of pure objectivity anymore. But for a journalist a bias is something to be recognized and balanced. For a pundit a bias is their raison d'etre, and this makes an awful lot of difference in how you process what they are saying.
Unfortunately for all of us, television doesn't do us the solid of clearly noting who is a journalist and who is a pundit. Newspapers (remember them?) kindly put opinions on the editorial page and label them clearly as such, in fact they get the stink eye from other newspapers when they blur the lines.
The Interweb is even worse than TV, because here there is absolutely no accountability whatsoever. I don't have to run this blog by an editor, and I can say anything I want. Most people who read what I have to say will notice that I'm just some guy who likes to bloviate about random stuff. I don't have my feet on the ground of any particular situation and thus, my opinion is worth about as much as it costs to read this blog, which is basically just an investment of time, not money.
All of us have had to learn how to process information in the electronic age. We have learned to consider the source, fact check and perhaps even to reserve judgment. It is a peculiar thing, in an age when we can get the "facts" so quickly that we must now learn to wait to find out if those "facts" are actually facts. You might notice, if you've been reading this blog for a while, that I very rarely write about something that is "breaking news." Current? Yes, but I never just fire off a gut reaction to some headline or another, because headlines are deceptive, sensational and often worthy of hitting the trash bin. Learn about how the Interweb works, about terms like "clickbait" and actually think about how and why people are putting out the kind of misleading or downright false information that gets around so quickly.
It's because we want it. We want Fox News and CNN to blow up about the latest sensational thing that's happening. The National Enquirer polluted "news" stands for so long because enough people actually wanted to read about werewolves and bat-people secretly living in the sewers of Boise. People Magazine exists because someone cares about Kim-Ye and whether or not Katy Perry wore underwear to the latest exercise in self-congratulation.
That doesn't mean it's journalism. Journalism gets in the clouds of tear gas. Journalism gets arrested. Journalism sometimes gets beheaded. Because Journalism is dangerous stuff, because the truth is a powerful thing, and because, while we may want bloated opinions, fear mongering and sensationalism, what we really need is someone to tell our story, warts and all.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Listen, Please.
What is happening in Ferguson MO absolutely breaks my heart, I suppose that's why I keep writing about it, because I just can't get away from it. I don't really even know where to start, here's a list:
1. We have a race problem. To which the two most common replies are: "Duh!" or "Nuh-uh." I think the "Nuh-uh," crowd is the most problematic. The, mostly white, portion of the population who think because of MLK we have magically gotten past the legacy of slavery and because of legally enforced de-segregation we are somehow on equal footing. Being a young black man in this country is still treated like an illegal activity. If you're white and you have black friends, which so many of us "not racist" white folk claim to have, ask them how it goes when they get pulled over by John Q. Law. Ask them about their experiences of DWB, (driving while black), I can almost guarantee you they have some stories that will make your skin crawl. We have not solved anything, we are not living up to the ideal of liberty and justice for all, because of race certainly but also because:
2. We have a poverty problem. We are one of the "richest" countries in the world by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), however, such reliable reports as this one by Stanford indicate that our economic system is not sharing the wealth anything like equally. It is tied to the race problem that we have because the poverty rate for African Americans is twelve points higher than the general population (27% versus 15%) and it is similarly unbalanced for Hispanics (25.6%). In truly understanding poverty, you need to look beyond the numbers though, because a poor person in this country would not be suffering the same way in many poorer countries. We have rather exorbitant costs of living, at least for anything that resembles the "American Dream." We're up there with European countries which have less space, less natural resources, and in most cases a tighter social safety net (some call it socialism).
We "need" two cars and a fairly good sized house in the suburbs (or a really big house in the country, or a ritzy apartment in the "right" part of the city) to really be living the "good life." And the cost of that, in most urban metro areas, is nearly three times what an income well above the poverty line would provide. Which means that even a two income household can still be poor. Which means:
3. We have a security problem. Economic insecurity leads to a whole host of social ills. It leads to people walking a thin line of legality and thus having a somewhat antagonistic relationship with law enforcement. When you feel like the system is rigged against you, you are rather more comfortable trying to get yours, whether that means trying to wring every last drop out of welfare, or actually crossing the line and selling drugs, or running scams, or outright theft, and other crime, it all starts with people who feel like they don't really have a shot at "making it" through the regular channels. The reason that I think Breaking Bad, was such a cultural phenomenon is that it presented a very believable "middle class" family that was confronted with a believable scenario: cancer. The insurance won't pay for the treatment and a high school chemistry teacher decides to cook methamphetamine to pay the bills. It starts with an insecure situation and ends with a criminal empire, and would make no sense in most other developed nations, like, say Canada, where medical care is guaranteed. But the biggest problem on the list is:
4. We have an empathy problem. We have become insulated against the suffering of our neighbors. You see this in the varied responses to what happened to Michael Brown. You have people who want to believe that he was an unruly young black man who may have just robbed a convenience store while high on marijuana. Their failure to be empathetic is obvious. Then you have the people who want to believe that "Mike Mike" was a kid on the verge of finally breaking out of the badness of poverty through the golden gates of college education. They believe his death was a tragedy because he was finally going to "make it." But they're failing in empathy too, because they need a righteous victim rather than just a victim. We have a problem blaming the victims for their own suffering. Whether it's police brutality, profiling, rape, or what have you, we seem to only want to feel for people who seem righteous. But you don't have to think that all prisoners are innocent to see that our penal system could use some reform. You don't have to think that a girl is Polly Pureheart to think that she doesn't deserve to be raped. You don't have to think that Mike Brown was a choirboy to think that he didn't deserve to get shot 6 times.
What we need to do is stop requiring that every injustice be illustrated by the tragic killing of an innocent before we decide that we can do better. Does it always have to come down to a tragedy like the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama (1963)? Does our national conscience always need four little black girls in their Sunday best to be the victims before we decide it's time to fix what is broken? Can't we listen to Michael Brown's silent witness... to the protesters who are so angry they are willing to fight the power... to the protesters who want to get this done peacefully and non-violently?
We need to listen, or this is going to get even worse.
1. We have a race problem. To which the two most common replies are: "Duh!" or "Nuh-uh." I think the "Nuh-uh," crowd is the most problematic. The, mostly white, portion of the population who think because of MLK we have magically gotten past the legacy of slavery and because of legally enforced de-segregation we are somehow on equal footing. Being a young black man in this country is still treated like an illegal activity. If you're white and you have black friends, which so many of us "not racist" white folk claim to have, ask them how it goes when they get pulled over by John Q. Law. Ask them about their experiences of DWB, (driving while black), I can almost guarantee you they have some stories that will make your skin crawl. We have not solved anything, we are not living up to the ideal of liberty and justice for all, because of race certainly but also because:
2. We have a poverty problem. We are one of the "richest" countries in the world by Gross Domestic Product (GDP), however, such reliable reports as this one by Stanford indicate that our economic system is not sharing the wealth anything like equally. It is tied to the race problem that we have because the poverty rate for African Americans is twelve points higher than the general population (27% versus 15%) and it is similarly unbalanced for Hispanics (25.6%). In truly understanding poverty, you need to look beyond the numbers though, because a poor person in this country would not be suffering the same way in many poorer countries. We have rather exorbitant costs of living, at least for anything that resembles the "American Dream." We're up there with European countries which have less space, less natural resources, and in most cases a tighter social safety net (some call it socialism).
We "need" two cars and a fairly good sized house in the suburbs (or a really big house in the country, or a ritzy apartment in the "right" part of the city) to really be living the "good life." And the cost of that, in most urban metro areas, is nearly three times what an income well above the poverty line would provide. Which means that even a two income household can still be poor. Which means:
3. We have a security problem. Economic insecurity leads to a whole host of social ills. It leads to people walking a thin line of legality and thus having a somewhat antagonistic relationship with law enforcement. When you feel like the system is rigged against you, you are rather more comfortable trying to get yours, whether that means trying to wring every last drop out of welfare, or actually crossing the line and selling drugs, or running scams, or outright theft, and other crime, it all starts with people who feel like they don't really have a shot at "making it" through the regular channels. The reason that I think Breaking Bad, was such a cultural phenomenon is that it presented a very believable "middle class" family that was confronted with a believable scenario: cancer. The insurance won't pay for the treatment and a high school chemistry teacher decides to cook methamphetamine to pay the bills. It starts with an insecure situation and ends with a criminal empire, and would make no sense in most other developed nations, like, say Canada, where medical care is guaranteed. But the biggest problem on the list is:
4. We have an empathy problem. We have become insulated against the suffering of our neighbors. You see this in the varied responses to what happened to Michael Brown. You have people who want to believe that he was an unruly young black man who may have just robbed a convenience store while high on marijuana. Their failure to be empathetic is obvious. Then you have the people who want to believe that "Mike Mike" was a kid on the verge of finally breaking out of the badness of poverty through the golden gates of college education. They believe his death was a tragedy because he was finally going to "make it." But they're failing in empathy too, because they need a righteous victim rather than just a victim. We have a problem blaming the victims for their own suffering. Whether it's police brutality, profiling, rape, or what have you, we seem to only want to feel for people who seem righteous. But you don't have to think that all prisoners are innocent to see that our penal system could use some reform. You don't have to think that a girl is Polly Pureheart to think that she doesn't deserve to be raped. You don't have to think that Mike Brown was a choirboy to think that he didn't deserve to get shot 6 times.
What we need to do is stop requiring that every injustice be illustrated by the tragic killing of an innocent before we decide that we can do better. Does it always have to come down to a tragedy like the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama (1963)? Does our national conscience always need four little black girls in their Sunday best to be the victims before we decide it's time to fix what is broken? Can't we listen to Michael Brown's silent witness... to the protesters who are so angry they are willing to fight the power... to the protesters who want to get this done peacefully and non-violently?
We need to listen, or this is going to get even worse.
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