Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Eastbound, WA. Image by Joe Mabel. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.
Reblogged from ABC News (the Australian one):
As it becomes clear that the fates of liberal and conservative Christianities may not be as distinct as is commonly assumed, the time has arrived for a re-evaluation of liberal Christianity. For conservatives, the task is to stop interpreting the demise of liberal congregations as a victory for evangelical Christianity, and to explore what might be learned from the fact that liberal Christianity’s roots lie in the attempt to adapt and respond to cultural diversity and modern individualism. For liberals, the challenge involves far more than finding the courage to address the significant decline in church membership. Their task begins only after acknowledging that liberal Christianity has a real problem transmitting itself to subsequent generations. As Steve Bruce has observed, liberal churches generally appeal more to disaffected conservatives than they do to people with no previous background in Christianity. This fact suggests that liberals need to give greater attention to why the doctrines and traditions of Christianity should matter to someone not already familiar with them.
I am a guest columnist in today’s Utica Observer-Dispatch!
Many thanks to Dave Dudajek for doing me a favor and allowing me this slot.
Here is an excerpt:
When we as a society compare our sex offenders to garbage, we do the same thing to them that they did to us. In doing so, we stoop to their level and perpetuate the cycle of violence.
American society at large endorses such violence because no one is said to be more despicable than a sex offender. We seem to have made it OK to dehumanize and hate these people because of what they have done to others. We use them as scapegoats and a “dumping ground” for our own rage, frustration, and self-hatred. Again, we do to them what they did to us. We become what we judge.
With this housing crisis, I believe God is presenting us with an opportunity to rise above revenge and break the cycle of dehumanizing violence. We have a chance to stand in solidarity with Jesus, who ate with tax collectors and sinners, the scapegoats and “sex offenders” of his day and age.
“From my faith perspective, singling people out for exclusion from the life of the church or the life of the community cannot possibly be part of God’s plan… If you look at the people Jesus tended to be most suspicious of, they were people who sat in positions of authority to say that they had the unique ability to judge others.”
Image is in the public domain. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons.
My wife played me a recording this week from an NPR program called This American Life. The entire episode was about the way kids think and the funny (sometimes profound) things they say. It was originally broadcast in 2001:
It all began at Christmas two years ago, when my daughter was four-years-old. And it was the first time that she’d ever asked about what did this holiday mean? And so I explained to her that this was celebrating the birth of Jesus. And she wanted to know more about that. We went out and bought a kids’ bible and had these readings at night. She loved him. Wanted to know everything about Jesus.
So we read a lot about his birth and his teaching. And she would ask constantly what that phrase was. And I would explain to her that it was, “Do onto others as you would have them do unto you.” And we would talk about those old words and what that all meant.
And then one day we were driving past a big church and out front was an enormous crucifix.
She said, who’s that?
And I guess I’d never really told that part of the story. So I had to sort of, yeah, oh, that’s Jesus. I forgot to tell you the ending. Well, you know, he ran afoul of the Roman government. This message that he had was so radical and unnerving to the prevailing authorities of the time that they had to kill him. They came to the conclusion that he would have to die. That message was too troublesome.
It was about a month later, after that Christmas, we’d gone through the whole story of what Christmas meant. And it was mid-January, and her preschool celebrates the same holidays as the local schools. So Martin Luther King Day was off. I knocked off work that day and I decided we’d play and I’d take her out to lunch.
We were sitting in there, and right on the table where we happened to plop down, was the art section of the local newspaper. And there, big as life, was a huge drawing by a ten-year-old kid from the local schools of Martin Luther King.
She said, who’s that?
I said, well, as it happens that’s Martin Luther King. And he’s why you’re not in school today. So we’re celebrating his birthday, this is the day we celebrate his life.
She said, so who was he?
I said, he was a preacher.
And she looks up at me and goes, for Jesus?
And I said, yeah, actually he was. But there was another thing that he was really famous for. Which is that he had a message.
And you’re trying to say this to a four-year-old. This is the first time they ever hear anything. So you’re just very careful about how you phrase everything.
So I said, well, yeah, he was a preacher and he had a message.
She said, what was his message?
I said, well, he said that you should treat everybody the same no matter what they look like.
She thought about that for a minute. And she said, well that’s what Jesus said.
And I said, yeah, I guess it is. You know, I never thought of it that way, but yeah. And it is sort of like “Do onto others as you would have them do unto you.”
And she thought for a minute and looked up at me and said, did they kill him, too?
The NPR story ends there, but the answer to the little girl’s question is, of course, Yes. They did kill Dr. King too, and Oscar Romero, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the prophet Isaiah, and the apostle Paul. It seems that the treatment inflicted upon Jesus has also been visited on those who stand up for what is true and right in any age. The apostle Paul himself, before he was beheaded by the Roman state, famously said, “In my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” Paul seems to have picked up on the inherent connection that exists between what happened in Christ on the cross and what happens in those whose lives are similarly extinguished by unjust powers. In the mind of God, these events are not separate: They are one.
Jesus himself articulated a similar sense in Matthew 25 when he said to his followers, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,you did it to me.” The suffering of the hungry, naked, sick, and imprisoned people of this world is one and the same with the suffering of Christ.
We Christians don’t always understand this truth. At least, we don’t live as if we understood it. We separate these events in our minds. We separate the social from the spiritual. We say things like, “The church shouldn’t get involved in politics.” While I agree with this statement when it comes to religious institutions endorsing candidates or receiving state funding, I disagree with the idea that our most deeply held beliefs and values should not shape the way we organize our life together. Politics, on the most basic level, has to do with relationships, and relationships are what Jesus is most interested in. When someone once asked Jesus about the most important part of the Bible, he said it all comes down to relationships: your relationship with God and your relationship with your neighbors.
The quality of our relationships is the measure of the quality of our religion. In fact, we read in this morning’s scripture readings how religion should even take a back seat to relationships. In our first reading, from the book of Amos, the prophet tells the people that Yahweh their God is disgusted with their religious rituals and fed up with their pious posturing. He says that God isn’t even listening to the sound of your hymns anymore. Why not? Because what God really wants is for “justice [to] roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” In other words, God listens for the harmony and not the melody. God wants harmony between people, not just musicalnotes. That’s what the words justice and righteousness mean in this passage. God wanted nothing to do with their religion because their relationships were all out of whack. There is an inherent connection between the way people behave toward each other and the way they behave toward God. Injustice toward a neighbor is a sin against God. The spiritual is political. The quality of one’s religion is measured by the quality of one’s relationships.
In our New Testament reading, we see Jesus cleansing the Jerusalem temple. As he drove out the money changers, he shouted, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”
He was quoting a passage from the book of Isaiah. In that section, the prophet was setting forth a vision of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem as an international, multi-cultural center of faith and learning. People from all over the world, not just Jews, would one day be welcome in the house of God. The place designated for this activity was the Outer Court, also called the Court of the Gentiles. It was the only part of the temple where non-Jews were allowed to participate in worship. It just so happens that this was the very place where the money changers and animal dealers had set up their shops. They had robbed the Gentiles of their rightful place in God’s house. And for what? To make more money. By placing profit over people, they undermined the legitimacy of their spirituality. They made the house of God into “a den of robbers”, according to Jesus. Like Amos, Jesus wanted to see “justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
Again, the quality of our religion is measured by the quality of our relationships. What we do for our neighbors, we do for God. There is a connection between the suffering of people and the suffering of Christ.
This morning, we are continuing with the fifth sermon in a five-week series on the Great Ends of the Church. We’re asking the question, “Why does our church exist?” We’ve already given four answers to that question. We said the Great Ends of the Church are the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind, the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God, the maintenance of divine worship, and the preservation of the truth. This week, we’re adding a fifth Great End: the promotion of social righteousness.
This one tends to get us into trouble sometimes, because many (including some within the church itself) say “the church shouldn’t get involved in politics.” They cringe when preachers bring up controversial social issues from the pulpit, preferring instead that preachers would just “stick to the gospel.”
But here’s the thing: a good preacher can’t preach the gospel without getting into relevant social issues. Any minister who just wants to save individual souls for heaven isn’t preaching the gospel of Jesus. Jesus said the quality of our religion is measured by the quality of our relationships. Jesus said, “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,you did it to me.” Jesus drove the money changers out of the Gentiles’ place in the temple and told his followers to leave their offerings at the altar and make peace with their neighbors before coming to worship. Jesus said that God preferred the compassion of the Good Samaritan over the ritual purity of the priest and the Levite.
No Christian who actually reads the Bible can preach the gospel of Jesus without engaging in the promotion of social righteousness.
Now, as I said before, this doesn’t mean that churches should be endorsing candidates, telling people how to vote, or accepting money and power from the state. What it does mean is that we should all have a clear enough understanding and a firm enough commitment toward our beliefs and values that we are willing to speak up and act up when the culture around us promotes practices and policies that contradict said values. Do we believe at all people are made in the image of God? Then we should have something to say about equal opportunity for all races, classes, and genders in housing, education, and employment. Do we agree that Jesus had a special place in his heart for poor and outcast people? Then we should not just make room for them in our hearts, homes, and churches; but we should also re-locate and re-orient ourselves to be where they are: in the slums, bars, and jails of Oneida County. Do we believe that God loves everyone and never gives up on anyone? Then neither should we.
These Christian values, if we live them, will inevitably put us at odds with American values. We will have to go against the grain and the flow of the larger culture in order to hold it to a higher standard. It will be uncomfortable. It will make us unpopular. It might even be dangerous. But let us remember what our Savior taught us: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”
People throughout history, from Martin Luther King to the apostle Paul, have followed Jesus on the path of the cross. Their suffering and his suffering are one in the eyes of God. They didn’t just preach the gospel, they were the gospel. And they share in the resurrection life of Christ, who overcomes the bonds of death and proclaims a new reality in our midst, a new community that is overthrowing and replacing the old domination systems of this world: the kingdom of heaven-on-earth. When the church challenges the unjust practices and policies of the powers-that-be, we show ourselves to be citizens of that kingdom with the saints in light. The church’s promotion of social righteousness is not separate from the proclamation of the gospel or in addition to it, it is an essential part of it. Our actions in relationship with our neighbors comprise the text of the silent sermon we preach every day to the people around us.
As you know, our Monday night Vespers group has been studying Thank God for Evolution by Michael Dowd. This past week, we were so inspired by a passage from the book that we decided to change our name! Here’s what Michael has to say about it in his book…
I’ve come to think of the acronym STAR as summarizing this work to increase and deepen our evolutionary integrity…
S ervice: Supporting others in maintaining integrity and providing lifegiving service in additional ways. In so doing, we not only bless the world; we support our own growth and fulfillment, while boosting our chances for long-term integrous living.
T rust: Surrendering to the wisdom of divine Wholeness—that undeniable physical and nonphysical Reality beyond thought, belief, or denial, which is at work in the world and to which each of us is ultimately accountable.
A uthenticity: Getting real with oneself and others, owning the painful truths about one’s life, and grasping the comforting truth that God loves us anyway. Then making commitments that will cultivate healthy habits and supports for living in integrity.
R esponsibility: Stepping into the shoes of those we have harmed, and then making amends—while cultivating compassion for ourselves and others. Enlisting the support of others, too, as integrity is a team sport.
I imagine people coming together in groups, locally or online, to support one another’s growth in evolutionary integrity. We might call these groups “STAR Clusters.” And as we develop connections among such groups—email lists, conference calls, websites—for community-building, information-sharing, networking, support, action, we can imagine bridging the distances between the STARs, reaching through “interStellar space.”
If you feel inspired by this vision of intentional community, join us at our next STAR Cluster meeting this Monday evening at 6pm at First Presbyterian Church of Boonville! Even if you haven’t been reading Michael’s book, come anyway and join in our fascinating conversation.
The most exciting new development this week is that Michael Dowd himself has generously offered to chat with out group via conference call when we near the end of the book. We’ll be making arrangements for this to happen and will keep you updated as plans become concrete!
I’ve posted about T.M. Luhrmann’s work before. I find her fascinating.
This is re-posted from the NY Times:
We often imagine prayer as a practice that affects the content of what we think about — our moral aspirations, or our contrition. It’s probably more accurate to understand prayer as a skill that changes how we use our minds.
Today I’m standing with my atheist writing friends and saying that questions and criticisms should be allowed, even of things that I hold dear. And while this may not do much to help those who have been imprisoned for those questions or criticisms, it may begin to blur some of the battle lines that are drawn between our communities.
Rachel Held Evans once again offers the kind of all-around challenging and insightful commentary for which she is becoming famous. I’m not necessarily on the same page with RHE on everything, but her words are well-worth considering. As always, commentary and responses are welcome.
Reblogged from Rachel Held Evans:
I think a lot of progressive Christians like myself, eager to distance ourselves from some of the rhetoric and policies of the Republican brand of the pro-life movement, shy away from talking about abortion, when our call to do justice and love mercy demand that we speak and act to address this issue, even though it may be more complicated than we originally thought.
I should not forget that during my last winter at the pond there was another welcome visitor, who at one time came through the village, through snow and rain and darkness, till he saw my lamp through the trees, and shared with me some long winter evenings. One of the last of the philosophers — Connecticut gave him to the world — he peddled first her wares, afterwards, as he declares, his brains. These he peddles still, prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain only, like the nut its kernel. I think that he must be the man of the most faith of any alive. His words and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve. He has no venture in the present. But though comparatively disregarded now, when his day comes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect, and masters of families and rulers will come to him for advice.
“How blind that cannot see serenity!”
A true friend of man; almost the only friend of human progress. An Old Mortality, say rather an Immortality, with unwearied patience and faith making plain the image engraven in men’s bodies, the God of whom they are but defaced and leaning monuments. With his hospitable intellect he embraces children, beggars, insane, and scholars, and entertains the thought of all, adding to it commonly some breadth and elegance. I think that he should keep a caravansary on the world’s highway, where philosophers of all nations might put up, and on his sign should be printed, “Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that have leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road.” He is perhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any I chance to know; the same yesterday and tomorrow. Of yore we had sauntered and talked, and effectually put the world behind us; for he was pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, ingenuus. Whichever way we turned, it seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he enhanced the beauty of the landscape. A blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see how he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him.
Hopping Hadrian's Wall 