Life Without a Shepherd

Recently Salon ran an article about Evangelicals not letting in refugees. They laid the blame completely at the feet of the religion while paradoxically chastising Christians for not doing what their holy book told them to do. They did this through referencing a Stephen Colbert vignette.* 

The story goes that American Evangelicals would be better off if they dropped the fetters of Christianity and embraced the zeitgeist of American secularism. It is a myth that is repeated so often that it has been accepted as true. Yet, like all tall tales it accepted for convenience sake rather than internal logical consistency. When we examine the tale told by Salon (and others), it is one where the lay Christians have decided some political decision quite against the opinions of theologians and church leaders. Despite the fact that the Public Policy group for the Southern Baptist Convention or Christianity Today magazine or the National Association of Evangelicals or a myriad of other Evangelical (to say nothing of Catholic or Mainline) groups have called for welcoming the stranger; the average conservative Christian will have none of it. But who do they follow then if they do not follow the church? My guess is the glut of Republican nominees for president who all seem to be in one accord on this issue.

This brings me to the enigma inside all of this. Under these circumstances we know that the theologians, pastors, and church leaders are logically correct, factually sound, and faithfully grounded. Furthermore, the church leaders have not coerced or bullied their members to believe something. Rather, they have sought to appeal to Scripture and plain reason for why they should allow the window and orphan into America. I imagine that many a sermon has been preached and many a pastoral blog has been made in favor of welcoming the refugees. Those ministers and theologians who have stated otherwise are actually in the minority of Christian scholars and clergy though they are in the minority of “American Christians.”

This nuance is something that the media has not published. I don’t fault them for that. The news’ job is not to provide catechesis or interpretations of such thinking per se; but rather information. In other words the media must make sure not to bear false witness against someone or they have violated their sacred duty as truth tellers. 

There are times of course when we accidentally give bad information. There can be times when we felt that keeping silent on an issue was far worse than not having all of the facts; and, truth be told, we never do have all the information. Yet there comes a point when you have to re-examine yourself. Sometimes this comes emotionally when you realize you have not given someone the kind of kindness you would have desired. Worse still it can come when you have found out that you don’t make any sense anymore logically. 

In an interview with noted personality Bill Maher; Ross Douthat explained that while many atheists may have longed for a day when Christians were loosed from orthodoxy, they may not like what they turn into then. Douthat pointed out that they will not become agnostics or atheists, but rather heretics. They will form a sort of pseudo-Christianity which vaguely overlaps with Christian orthodoxy, but which is not really Christianity. Maher, of course, was credulous; yet Douthat’s prognostication is true and is becoming truer every day. It is not just the so-called progressive Christians who shirk scriptural authority, but Evangelicals. Whether it be Evangelicals clamoring for Trump despite the warnings of preachers or Bush shrugging off the Pope’s opinions because he “ think[s] religion ought to be about making us better as people, less about things [that] end up getting into the political realm”; the real problem with Christianity in America is that we have so few members of the Body of Christ. 

Seeing this disintegration, church leaders are seeking to prevail upon their congregants to root themselves in Scripture and Church. They are being taught to understand right doctrine and orthodoxy. Paradoxically the secular culture is blaming church leaders for the fault of not following proper teaching while simultaneously scratching their heads as to why people are disobeying Christian orthodoxy. The simple fact is that our zeitgeist has become the arbiter of sound doctrine. It has called for the disintegration of the church while simultaneously declaring itself to be the new unifying element.

This of course gets to the worst part of the whole issue: One should not be able to invalidate orthodoxy and then blame orthodoxy for the problem. Yet, this is exactly where we find ourselves. We have a million little heresies which are nothing more than American first-world self-centeredness with a veneer of deism to make it seem plausibly Christian. Secular culture cannot woo away the lay people and then blame the reasonable practitioners of the faith when the going gets rough. Yet this is exactly where we find ourselves.

My problem with secular culture is not that it is another belief system. (As a Christian I am aware that we will always be surrounded by those who don’t believe what we believe.) My problem with secular culture is its inauthenticity. It bullies around the other cultures and then whines when things don’t go as it planned. It usurps authority and then lays the responsibility on others in the ensuing disaster. The problem with the Evangelicals not allowing refugees in isn’t a result of close-minded Christian bigots, its the result of nationalists spreading fear. Until that story comes out though, we Christians will just keep on preaching the Gospel. Small voices can still be heard even through the whirlwind.

* I however believe the article was too heavily edited from its original source to be valid. It said exactly the same thing of course in an abbreviated format, but I disagree with what it said so I must be right. 

What I hope is my last post on The Red Cup incident of 2015

People often ask me what news I read. (Okay, they don’t ask me I just tell them.) My usual response is that I stick to precious few subjects. I read mostly business and science news updates. From time to time, I will glance at “The Economist” and “Christianity Today.” However, my places where I get news are very limited. The reason is that I really hate having to do background checks on my news. I reading a story and then having to probe into online articles, books, and audio samples to find out if it is true or not. Usually this is just simple bias. (One way to get factual news is to see if the people touting it would normally tout that news.) There are all sorts of ways to lie with statistics and quotes being taken out of context and information just plain not being shared. 

However, something happened recently that moved from mere curiosity, to annoyance, to actual outrage. Every so often a satirical news article is taken out of context and thought to be real. This is usually something that occurs when proponents of a particular viewpoint become desperate for someone to back up that narrative. (For instance, a few years ago the president of Iran touted that he was more popular with Americans than President Obama. His source? The well-known satirical site: the Onion.) Fact checking is fantastic and we need honest brokers. Sadly, we Christians have gotten targeted though.

You may think I am talking about the fact that we feel threatened that Christmas is being removed from this time of year; and that I am quite outraged by the “persecution” of not being able to say “Merry Christmas.” No, what I am angry about is that so many people know so little about Christianity, that they believed this story. This goes for Christians and non-Christians alike. I have met so many people inside and outside the church whose view of Christians is that we are all hate-mongering boycotters of anything that doesn’t come with Kurt Cameron’s stamp of approval. My question is simple, do you even know the Christians in your neighborhood or, heaven forbid, at your church? 

When this story broke, do you know that the major conservative Evangelical publications not only denied this but went a step further to talk about charity during the Christmas season? (Be honest with yourself, when was the last time you took charity seriously any time of the year, let alone Christmastime?) Did you read the articles from Christianity Today, Think Christian, or even Charisma; or did you just pile on like the rest of society? Did you bother to see the articles posted in Conservative or Liberal journals alike that said this was nothing more than a ploy by an opportunistic charlatan deliberately mis-reading a satirical article in Breitbert? My guess is no.

I have come to expect this kind of behavior from the majority of Americans who do not care whether they are inside or outside the doors of the church. I have come to expect this behavior from people who only get their news in thirty-second snippets. However, I am deeply hurt that similar responses have come from clergy as well. I am angry that so many of my friends who are pastors shared memes made by secularists chastising Christians rather than pointing out that this was a big lie. I am outraged that they didn’t operate with Christlike wisdom or pastoral care to a world in need of the Gospel; but rather decided to declare themselves “not those kinds of Christians.” The problem is that “those kinds of Christians” didn’t exist except for the small fanbase this charlatan has accumulated. Rather than being pastoral though, many of my clergy and lay friends decided to accept the myth that this really was a movement among Christians. They chose to speak alongside the lie because it was easier than fighting for the truth. I will not post anything about how Christians should advocate for the homeless or care for the poor or feed the hungry, because that has already been posted in a much older text by a much wiser being. I will not post that Christians should not worry about the new design of a coffee-chain’s cups because that was never brought up by any true Christian except in jest or pharisaical judgement of a straw man.

Today I am ashamed to be a Christian, not because so many of us believe there is a war on Christmas being perpetrated by the red hue of a coffee cup and so few spoke against it. I am ashamed to be a Christian because so many non-Christians lined up to mock the body of Christ as hypocrites and so many Christians joined in the taunts or remained silent. Merry Christmas everybody, from one scoundrel who doesn’t deserve to be called a child of God to another, Merry Christmas

The Sporting Life

In 532 Constantinople was rocked by a series of riots that put the entire Roman Empire in peril of self-destruction. The lofty empire had, of course, seen better days; but the rising of Islam and Western Europe were still off in the Horizon. No one could equal its power and prestige. Its influence in its vicinity was second to none. So what could have caused these riots to break out? Simple, one sports team didn’t like another sports team. As one side was victorious, the other side took to torching the city.

This of course seems to be a common occurrence in America these days. I was embarrassed a few years ago when downtown Columbus witnessed such barbaric behavior; but the Buckeyes aren’t the only place where this happens. George Carlin once famously pointed out that American culture is divided into two very different mindsets with two very different sports at the center. One sport is baseball and the other is football. One represents coming home, business acumen, and the American pastoral; the other is terribly reminiscent of war. Over the years baseball’s allure has waned, while football seems to take up more and more daytime, night time, and airtime. (It is quite literally the only fantasy many men do not feel ashamed participating in either.) Despite the very aggressive nature of the game and the recent scientific evidence that it is leading to deaths and disabilities; Americans seem to love it even more.

However, even more troubling is the sport’s mentality which is seeping into every part of our nation’s consciousness. Politics is not a place for ideas, but a winner take all blood sport. Our schools are becoming more defined by what happens on gridiron than what happens in the classrooms. Our relationships are based more on who is right and wrong; than on caring for one another. 

We can simply look back on Nika riots of Constantinople and laugh, but each day we involve ourselves in the mini-riots. Each day we slash and burn relationships with people because we have to be on the right side. We have to beat someone to be better. We have to win. 

There is a violence to being right at all costs. Bonhoeffer famously addresses this in Ethics when he discusses the fact that human beings have now become arbiters of right and wrong. When we love being right, rather than reconciling another human being with what is right; we are just as guilty as they are because we become the ultimate judges of the universe. 

At the end of Nika, the emperor courted the faction opposed to the rebels. The allied with him and 30,000 rebels were slaughtered. That isn’t the end of the story though. The fighting without a purpose came to dominate the Byzantine empire and would eventually fall. When you embrace a faction to point blind obedience, your end is insured. When you embrace a purpose with the aim of helping one another, your future remains unwritten. Time will tell if Americans will abandon “the bloodsport mentality” of winner-take-all for the hard work of life together; but that is a victory I long to see.

The Real Choices in Life are Choices for Life.

I honestly shouldn't have to defend this position. Its pretty self-evident. I think it is interesting that when you do try and see things from another person's perspective, but can't do it; people say you are insensitive. I guess that is where I find myself right now. I am a white male and I am either to be kowtowed to an anti-life caucus or caricatured as some insensitive while male who wants to keep his squaw barefoot and pregnant. So, lets briefly look at the facts.

Women's health is important. I know this because I am a human being with friends who are women. I know women who have had cancer and struggled through it. I know women who have faced other life threatening illnesses. I have known women who have suffered hostility just because they are women. And I have known women who have been brave enough to raise children against all odds. Let me be frank, those women who know the responsibility of raising children on their own, or at least with cards stacked against them, are the bravest heroes of all. They dare to shout out for life in a cosmos bent towards death. 

I remember one such person in particular. She was in a cadre of friends of mine. I remember one day we went out for coffee and she told me she had some sobering news. As we drove, she told me she had become pregnant. Unmarried and not from the best economic situation, this is a "life-sentence" for anyone. I was there for her obviously, but I knew her decision was bigger than anything I had ever faced in my life. For her, it wasn't even a question though. She had that child. It wasn't the best of scenarios, but no one gets to choose a better scenario. She raised it with the help of her family, but frankly I think the temptation to give up on the hardships would have been there too.

I find it interesting the way we misrepresent courage and cowardice. It is as if being a woman or a man lets you be one or the other depending on your own clan. Some women say that men shouldn't talk about an operation that terminates a human life. Some men act as if women are just God's afterthought and should be grateful to get a footnote in the Bible. But I can't see how a member of the human community can think that another person isn't worth an inestimable cost. We hear of castaways lost and away from human beings dying for companionship. We know that the UN declares prolonged solitary confinement a crime against humanity. A human life is precious. It seems we only realize it when we are away from them. When we have a surplus of humanity then we talk of slavery and exploitation. We talk of death penalties and abortions. We discuss the cost benefit analysis of troops or healthcare or job markets. Stalin once said, "To kill one man is murder, to kill many is statistics." It is sad that his grim arithmetic is just as logical for the capitalist as the totalitarian. No one really has free-choice when convenience is the guiding star.

But this isn't just a tale about me, or my friend, or the women I know; is it? Its a tale about how we want to be remembered. It is just trading one terrible sin against a less terrible sin (if such cost-benefit analysis exists in our Lord's mind). We must make sure that women's health doesn't get used by extremists and charlatans. The progressives are right to demand women's health needs are covered. They must be covered, or this whole debate was a sham. Let us take Utah for example. The state recently moved all of its money from Planned Parenthood to women's health clinics. This move obviously fixes the problems. In fact, Democrats for Life has stated that giving to these clinics is a far better return on the investment. 

While hyperbole is running rampant from both camps, and human lives are being used in this political chess game; we should not let our common humanity be clouded. The ethical answer is simple: What will preserve the most human life? We leave as secondary the penultimate questions of: What causes the most human flourishing? or What helps society the most? To place these as primary is to give way to the eugenicist and the malthusian. Human life and being in community is difficult. The choices are not easy. Life is not an easy choice. 

So, I guess I am for choices. I am for hard ones. I am pro-the difficult choice. The choice that costs me more in my taxes. I am for the choices that make inconvenience me. I am for the choice of life. None of us really got a choice of where and to whom we are born, but I don't think a person alive can say it was a bad choice. There really is only one bad choice in that regard.

Thoughts on the Defunding of Planned Parenthood

So I've been following this issue for quite some time. I support healthcare. I am for a universal health care package. And even though the new Healthcare.gov has its issues, it is an improvement upon the previous situation. (My wife and I feel we are too poor to actually go to get regular checkups and all those tests, so obviously it isn't perfect.) I support gun control. I have friends who are hunters and think the best way I can show my love for my fellow human is to never pick up a firearm. I am for a pay scale that resembles the 1950s rather than the 1910s. I hope this settles my credentials. Sadly it will not. And that's a shame. It really is. It shows that nuanced thinking on an issue must take a back seat to partisan jockeying. The most horrible jockeying is with regards to human lives and the role of women in our society.

Several years ago, when I was in college, several of my friends asked who I would vote for. I wasn't really sure. They immediately said that I must vote for the conservative candidate since he would offer the best chance in getting rid of Roe v. Wade. I immediately countered that if the Republicans (or Democrats) ever did move in that direction, I would have a moral imperative to vote for them; but neither side would, so its a moot issue. Neither side did; but an organization called Center for Medical Progress has did. They did the thing which always needs to be done. They forced people to see their actions. This is what Wilberforce did with slavery in Britain or King did when marching to Selma. It forces people to make a stand. We are no longer permitted to allow the horrors done in our name to be ignored. Evil confronts us and we must respond. More on that later though.

What I find so frustrating is the way that the political Left has circled the wagons around Planned Parenthood. That is actually what spurred this blog. An article in the LA Times chastised Ms. Fiorina for her attack of Planned Parenthood. It even went so far as to demand an apology of her. I care very little for the Republican primary candidates (we are still over a year away from elections and months away from the first caucuses); but why is this journalist going after Fiorina in this way. Indeed in a way that betrays highly un-journalistic standards. So let us look at just three ways in which there has been a non-discussion of this issue.

Firstly, there is the charge of editing. The article from the LA Times declares, "The tapes have been conclusively discredited as heavily edited misrepresentations, but not even the 'full' versions (though somewhat edited, according to Planned Parenthood analysis show the scene Fiorina describes." The conclusive discrediting was provided by a media group in the employ of Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood's analysis was that used for the discrediting of the full version. I want you to stop and think about that for a second. This is Kafkaesque. It is an absurdity. That is like a victim of assault being told nothing bad happened because the assailant reviewed all the evidence and declared all was well. This is, sad to say, the logic of a five year old. I do not speak in hyperbole when I ask why this person has not been laughed off of the paper. I would not be able to turn in a college paper with "logic" like that. But ideologues rarely look to logic to be their guide.

This brings me to my second point. If the welfare of women is your goal, then why not invest in organizations that are far more efficient. Democrats for Life point out that the alternative is clear: Community Health Centers. Planned Parenthood has become a corporation. They are about their bottom line. Traditionally democrats have been for support to be provided by the commonwealth. Pound for pound, people are far better served by these Community Health Centers than by Planned Parenthood. The health of women (and men) is far more comprehensive than basic care provided by Planned Parenthood. Even better is the fact that one doesn't have to worry about the albatross of "abortion." Which leads to a really frightening question. If such an organizational alternative to Planned Parenthood exists, why not take it? The sad truth is that by abandoning Planned Parenthood, many democrats fear losing constituents who favor keeping abortion on the books. In essence it is the abortion issue, as much as the Planned Parenthood people would like to tell you otherwise, which is the real issue. If Planned Parenthood did away with abortions tomorrow, the issue would be over very quickly. This isn't about women's rights to health. This is about abortion.

That brings up the third point, women's rights. Throughout history we have been faced with an embarrassment: the indignity visited upon women. No matter where we turn in human culture; we must take a humble and long examination of how we treat women. For so long a woman could give birth to a child and be virtually ignored by the other participant in that union. Great works have talked about this issue. I remember reading novels such as "The Scarlet Letter," plays like "The Importance of Being Ernest" or biographical works such as "Lawrence of Arabia" or the discussions of Hamilton. Of course these works focused on the offspring and not the women for whom the stress must have been great (even factoring in differences of cultures and epochs). I still remember when one of my friends informed me that she was pregnant with a friend's child. I made sure she knew I saw her no differently than before. This is the criticism real feminists have. The woman involved in sex is considered inferior whereas a man is considered virile. The woman who has a child in such a situation can be neglected while the man can choose to continue his life. This is the real issue that should be addressed. We should support life wherever it is. We should support it in our criminal justice system. We should support it in our international negotiations. We should support it even in the face of our enemies. But death as an expedient to expunge shame in a patriarchal society is a step backwards, and that is what Planned Parenthood represents. It represents the easy way out of the deadbeat dad, not the noble way forward of a enlightened woman and the commonwealth to whom she belongs. It takes a stand against all the forces of evil in this world in favor of life and right action.

So we have defunded Planned Parenthood. Good. What will you do with that money now? Will you find some lobbyist to give it to, or will you support the cause that you claim to back? Will you invest in life? I suppose the story of Planned Parenthood, given the sad state of affairs in current American culture, is that we will have defunded a great evil of commission for a lesser evil of omission. And when seen that way, this isn't much of a victory.

The Christian Feint.

I grew up in a mainline church. I have wonderful memories of running around the church and being part of a church environment that focused on being a family. I also remember doing mission work in Cincinnati. I remember how neither the Catholics nor the Baptists really knew much about Lutherans. Needless to say, coming from an environment where everyone was Lutheran to one where people are not is a bit of a shock.

Today, I don't neatly fit into either category of Christian right or Christian left. My friends on the left would say I am a conservative and my friends on the right would call me a liberal. I can get equally frustrated with people on both sides of an issue. However, what is becoming most infuriating these days is a level of snarkiness that emerges in a Christian dogma rooted in fear rather than Christ.

I should be perfectly honest, I am not aware of the Christian right as much as I should be. To be sure, they can be as disingenuous as the Christian left. However, the Christian right seems to have turned a corner. The pastors are either allowing the secular right to take over the jeremiads against culture or they have realized that there are bigger fish to fry. The Evangelicals have usually been more attuned to culture shifts and have moved accordingly. Today the leading voices in Evangelicalism are people such as David Platt, Francis Chan, and Tim Keller. Some of the older crowd still listen to the profit-seekers in prophets clothing, but in reality the Evangelicals are pretty even-keeled and the magazines like Relevant and Christianity Today are unafraid of delving into deep issues.

The same cannot be said for the Christian left, and that is what this blog post is about. The cassandras of the left feel consistently and constantly embattled. On one side they are dealing with being culturally irrelevant and on the other side they are dealing with being theologically irrelevant. The response is usually a vicious and dismissive snarkiness. They tend to be open-minded to the wider zeitgeist, but antagonistic to the Evangelicals and larger Christian historical thought. In this way they are a feint. It appears they are hitting the spirit of the world with punch, but they really reserve their attacks for the Evangelicals.

It manifests itself in many ways. For one thing when looking at their crippling decline, they try and show that other denominations on the other side are losing more. Which they are not. They talk about how they do not water down the message. Which they do. They speak of how they are adapting to the times or remaining true to the old forms. Which is not true either.

Yet all these remarks are said with a high-brow snobbishness that only wins them the nods of approval of people who have accepted a watered-down Christianity with enough trappings to make you feel like you are getting a full meal. There are classes where professors dismissed anything that didn't go along with bureaucratic orthodoxy. There have been church services with bon mots against fellow believers. I have even witnessed pastors chuckle at the "stupidity" of the laity.

The biggest difference between the Evangelicals and the Mainlines is that the Evangelicals have chutzpah to tell you what they really think. Were that all Christians more concerned with speaking openly and honestly and not snarkily.