You, Me, and Pastors (hopefully part one of a series)

In recent weeks Mark Driscoll's star hasn't just eclipsed, its gone supernova. Damage control that should have been done years ago, is finally too big for him to handle. Last year it was Steven Furtick and his $3 million home. The sad and scary thing is that I got some joy out of it. The complex emotion comes from the fact that it feels nice when people who put so much stock in these rock-star pastors get it wrong. Friends who would come up to me and ask if I had read something by Driscoll or Furtick are now eating crow because of the monumental failures they have shown themselves to be. Luke 18:11 comes to mind. Its the part where the pharisee stands in front of God almighty and thanks the giver of all good things ... that he is not like the poor wretch next to him. "The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector.'"

Oh Lord God, I thank you that I am not like Mark Driscoll or Steven Furtick. I thank you that I am not like the other pastors who get taken down by greed or gossip or sex! I thank you that when one of them gets taken out, maybe I can move up just one more rung! Maybe, I'll be appreciated. Lord God, glorify me!

That is the secret prayer my heart makes when I am not looking and turned around. Thank God for His Holy Spirit. I recommend the rest of Luke 18, but especially Luke 18:9-14:

 9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: 10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

For this I repent. You see daily repentance and renewal (and many things we associate with the life of the pastor) is not for them alone. It is for you and I. I live day by day on grace that God has given me. I am in Christ's debt. The more I live with my own pride and comparison being the center of my identity, the more envious I become of those who are getting along better than I am and even those who give me so much. This has always been why I have been so against pride, any kind. It is a sin which I wrestle with and kills me every time. 

While I look at the failures of pastors and ask the Holy Spirit to guide me in how I should feel about this, I find that it comes back to my walk with Jesus. The sad thing for my pride is that when we are focused on Jesus we don't have enough vision to gloat over the failures of others or feel envious of their success. All we can do is be thankful like the second man in the parable. All we can say is: God, have mercy on me, a sinner. 

Deaths Which are not My Own.

Perhaps one of the most hypocritical things one can do is declare that we should not intervene. It was, theoretically, intervention that stopped the Nazis in their tracks. Yet, I suppose that the Nazis were an aberration rather than a rule. As we look throughout history we find time and again that evil is confounded only after it has reached a limit. Napoleon just couldn't keep going. The Vikings settled down after raiding. Rome was not so much conquered, but fell apart. The great bloodletting by the Golden Horde and expansion by the Ottoman's was not checked by violence, so much as the ware and tare upon them internally.

And so I am not sure what to make of ISIS. I would want a strong deliverer if I were in the position of my brothers and sisters confronting such a demonic clan. I have read of a great clamor for the U.S. to be involved, protect the innocent, fight and kill the evil doers. Our question should never be should evil be resisted, but rather who and how should evil be resisted. 

America has had two very painfully bad wars in the Middle East. Al Qaeda, such that they were, perpetrated a terrible tragedy upon humanity. Saddam was a tyrannical dictator who kept rule through oppression and fear. There was a large outcry for the U.S. military to come over and intervene. Perhaps we didn't care enough to rebuilt, but that doesn't change the fact. Whatever your justification, if your desire to use force is what you belief you will be offering; than you are not concerned with winning for peace. Peace requires greater discipline than war; and while there are many things America is showing the world which it has, discipline is quickly becoming apparent that it is not one of them.

And so we find ourselves, after seeing and sometimes fighting skirmishes with lesser clans, to be facing a movement of a people. A condensed hatred drunk in like poison has brought a living death to people no longer people but with human form. ISIS is evil and people have sworn themselves to that evil. The oath has been made in blood. Sadly, in our rashness, we have conjured up the specter to feast upon brothers and sisters in another part of the world. The deed has already been done and monsters have already been summoned.

Now we find ourselves back in a place we had sworn we would have already left so many years ago. In our desire to fight a war without a projected peace, we end up bombing a place where we have not declared war. bellum erit in perpetuum

Yet do I let people die whose lives were disturbed and disrupted further than they already had been by actions caused by my people? Do I wipe my hands of the whole thing because my people failed to think something through? On the other hand, can we afford one more war? We have a president who has been pulling back from greater military escalation in a part of the world we have been attempting to make in our own image. Our nation has desired to send young men and women to fight a forever war. Meanwhile they fight in a place that is not our own by people who are trying to rebuild either on traditions of the better part of their culture or the demons that possess them. I cannot help but wonder what they must think when planes from the outside world rain down bombs upon them. 

Ultimately there is no satisfactory answer. We either fight a forever war or watch people die in the aftermath of hell we have created. Even if we think it is noble to play the champion and come to the rescue, what will guarantee our success? All of this runs through my mind when I think of ISIS. How are we to protect against the evil in this world? How do we make sure it doesn't harm us? How do we make sure it doesn't become us? There are no clear answers. Evil will always be just beyond our ability to understand, to feel, to relate to; but it will always be close at hand. We must just pray that something is closer, if just for a little. 

I firmly believe that what we must do is be willing to call things what they are. Let us dust off words we wished not to use. Let us call evil what it is: evil. For those of us who believe, let us pray for righteous judgment to befall evil itself. Finally, let us make sacrifices for the restoration of human life in reflection and homage to that which we believe is the source of human life.

I admit that I do not know how it should be done, but I do know what should be done. We must save the lives of those who suffer at the hands of evil. We must not let evil be disguised by human form and destroy that which seeks to destroy our shared humanity.

Of Atlas and Pastoral Sanity

I believe that in order to do truly great things we need time, and time is a commodity that America does not value.  A friend of mine posted a talk by Walter Brueggemann in which he said that the pastor has gotten side-tracked by other duties outside of the traditional rabbinic duties that pastors were supposed to possess.  I shall ignore the shortcomings of that analysis and state that too often the pastor has is believed to be the one person and only person who is to change the church.  The hierarchy (i.e. synods, District Super Attendants, or other high-muckity-mucks) are not believed to be involved in the dynamic changes of parish life and the laity are viewed as being ill-equipped.  Thus the onus and burden for the life of the church too often falls on the pastor.  I remember a lay person giving a talk at a chapel service.  He talked about how pastors needed to get their finances in order.  He said, "If you can't afford seminary, maybe that is a sign you shouldn't go or that you should wait."  I will not go into the segue of how that places mammon above God; but I will say that he is quite correct that pastors should look at their finances and stewardship.  That being said, one can be completely right but totally wrong by not attacking the whole issue.  My question is this, "Do we expect pastors to be some sort of shaman or pontifex maximus with the backs of Atlas who shoulder the brunt of the entire church expectant or do we look at the eschatological reality of the church as the culture into which we all participate?"  Pastors do and should have a lot of responsibility.  If I have let people down, I have let my God down; I deserve to experience the same repercussions and long to experience the same grace as my office dictates.  God save the American church.

Charlatans amongst the argument.

When I was young, the Representative from our district came and visited our school.  I can remember thinking how cool it was to have a politician come and visit.  You see, I had been raised in a family that respected civil authorities.  Luther and the other Wittenberg reformers had been very much of the opinion that the civil authorities are to be given respect as any person in any job should have respect.  Concurrently, my father had been a person very much involved in politics from a young age.  He had grown up reading biographies and even, from time to time, tried his hand at it.  So, I was very happy to report what had happened at school.  My father held his council.  Good dads know when that opinions spouted to children have a nasty habit of growing up ill-formed in the child.

It has been years since then.  Rob Portman has moved on to do bigger and grander things.  And recently, in an article in the Dispatch, he threw his lot in with the pro-gay-marriage group.  While I am for all Americans to be permitted to marry, I have found this groups tactics to be questionable.  Obviously emotions move people quicker than logic; but we have to ask what the fall-out from this whole enterprise will be?

First, let me clear up my view on homosexuality.  My religious stance should not matter, but nor should it be discounted.  I believe, like the rest of orthodox Christianity, that homosexuality is a sin.  That is to say it creates disunity with God and God's creation.  If you do not believe in God or do not hold to the Christian view of creation, that is your prerogative.  I also believe in grace.  I believe grace is far more convicting than the law.  If we were to ban homosexual marriages, how many other things would we have to ban?  Would we ban lying?  Covetousness?  Adultery?  How about taking the Lord's name in vain?  In addition, we would have to render null and void all the marriages outside the Christian faith.  Legalism doesn't work.  God knows this.  That is why he sent his son.  Of course the law hasn't been done away with; but neither are we saved by it.  We enter into discipleship under the shadow of the cross and the darkened empty tomb, not legalistic precepts.

Sadly this is a battle that is being fought by legalistic pharisees on both extremes.  Both see the laws of nature being the paramount of human salvation or at least justification; rather than seeing a life relationally transformed through grace by faith.  I do not have faith in my biology.  Eventually telomeres will stop splitting and my heart will run down.  My body, mind, and soul seek my ruin.  Whatever.  That's life.

Rather, Christians should seek to make sure no one is persecuted because of their beliefs.  I have always thought of homosexuals as having a different worldview than the Christian.  That person has a different telos and has seen fit to bind himself or herself to different codes than the Christian.  To me a homosexual deserves the same tolerance and respect as a Buddhist, Atheist, Jew, Muslim, or countless other worldview participant.  Christianity was not born in a Christian nation, it was born in a foreign land.  It was born in the land of its sojourn.  As such we must be accepting to others who do not share our views.  Perhaps they will become Christian in the end, but that is not ours to determine.  That is a work of the Spirit.  We are only His humble servants.

Which brings me back to Rob Portman and other charlatans.  Perhaps a tragedy as great as the denial of civil rights to homosexuals (for instance not being able to receive pay upon the death of a partner or visitation rights at a hospital), has been the rise of the gay-rights' charlatans.  They range from corporations looking for an easy cause to gain consumers to politicians looking for votes to religious organizations who see a way to maintain their standing in a changing country.  Would these groups actually back the homosexual movement if it were not in vogue?  I doubt it.  Corporations would keep their lips tightly sealed, while the politicians and religious leaders would practice the age-old technique of doublespeak.

And so we come to the most recent of members to the "homosexual-rights" bandwagon, the Republicans.  It has been amazing that after this election cycle how many Republicans have become advocates.  I found it interesting to read.  Granted the Libertarians had always been in favor of it.  I suppose that was wind in the perfect storm, but the other fact was that the religious vote just doesn't mean anything.  The younger evangelicals could care less about Caesar and his elections, but those who do still care are going to vote Republican anyway so what does it matter what the party thinks?

And Portman, always the adaptable political player, has metamorphosed once again into a person who accepts homosexuality.  While some may come out praising his "courage" for, not becoming an ally, but just affirming that homosexuals should be allowed to marry in civil unions (something it should be noted that even the members who have broken off of mainline protestant churches affirm); we must look at the history of this politician.

I know this is going to touch a sensitive nerve here, but I actually am offended by this editorial.  He states that his Christian religion led him to his harsh stance, but the love of his son led him to a changed mind (what the Greeks would call metanoia).  The blessing should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the heresies of Conservative Evangelicals.  He became reconciled to family and nation; and what was the sacrifice legalistic Christianity.

Rob, I give up legalistic Christianity daily.  Its what Luther calls daily repentance and renewal.  Its called understanding that your country and your own heart are sometimes out to make your life hell.  I started this process in high school after reading Bonhoeffer's ethics.  I didn't need a son coming out to me to show me that legalism isn't the heart of the gospel.  I knew it because of Christ's death on the cross.  I knew it because I wrestle daily with urges of pride and envy and greed and dishonesty and, most importantly, idolatry.

I am glad Mr. Portman has decided that homosexuals should be allowed to be recognized as equal under the law of government.  I am just angered by his reasoning.  I am angered that he didn't understand his alleged faith enough to see that it allows for people with whom one disagrees to be given the same rights under the law.  I am angered that he used his son as the reason instead of his faith.

However, I am most angered by the charlatans like Mr. Portman who jump on the bandwagon of protecting a group of persecuted people for their own gain.  I wonder how many non-Christians will assume that the debate that went on inside Mr. Portman's soul was a debate between the real Christianity and the love of family or human rights.  Like all charlatans, Mr. Portman tries to square the circle by saying he is for churches who disagree with homosexuality.  He wants to have his cake and eat it too; and in our day and age of over-simplified media sound bites, I imagine he will get his wish.  The gay-rights' groups will trumpet his support as yet another sign of the march of progress; and for services rendered Mr. Portman will become a little more palatable to changing demographics in this country.  And in the end only two groups will have lost, orthodox Christians who believe in the dignity of human beings made in the image of God but ultimately flawed and sinful, and the homosexuals who will have found themselves used once again to further some person's campaign.  Meanwhile the corporations, the activists, the politicians, Christendom's lapdogs, and talking-heads will have moved forward in the name of progress but under the influence of their own self-importance.

But here is the hopeful part.  When the parade is gone and all the sycophants don't need to suck-up to anyone anymore; we Christians will still be behind ... like we always have been.  And maybe after the hoopla and intoxicating rhetoric, we will be able to speak openly of our sins to a world in need of a savior who, it just so happens, is waiting after the grandstanding is over, to be introduced to just one more person in need.  It has been repeated so often that we forget the meaning, "that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, so that whoever believes in him may not parish but have eternal life."  Luther called that the Gospel in the nutshell; and its nice to know that after all the writing and rewriting of principles, and the minting and reminting of new paradigms; the Gospel still remains true and unalterable.  I am a sinner exactly like you, but thankfully that is exactly who God came to save.

Dreams and Discipline

The other day, as people may have read, I was dealing with a sense of guilt.  This usually stems from me not being where I would like to be, whether it be my personal life or my professional one (whatever that is).  I still stand by my belief that too many of us are hopelessly not taking our guilt seriously.  We are not trying to get better.

Yet, I just watched a TED talk by the education reformer Sir Ken Robinson (actually I watched two, but in my defense I don't have cable).  It was in one of these that Robinson told the story of a person who had always wanted to be a fireman, he had been chastened by society and went ahead with his dream anyway.  The story is too good for me to ruin in this blog post, but I want to point out something that struck me about what Robinson said and what I was thinking about last night; we are bombarded with conflicting ideas and the question is how do we square the circle?

This is what academics call a paradox.  On one hand we have to believe in our dreams, while on the other hand we must rise above our vices.  Yet, both of these are found in the same human being.  Sometimes our vices are part of our dreams; the person with a reckless personality is a great adventurer or hero.  The person with a compassionate heart sometimes neglects wise decisions; while a person with a good head lacks compassion.  On and on, virtue and vice are tied together.

Yet there is a deeper question and problem at work here.  How do we make children feel empowered to do great things in life, while also making them aware that self-discipline is extremely important?  Or to use an example, how do we help the person who is gifted at ... say ... philosophy fill in paperwork.  Its much like telling a child that sweets are good, but broccoli is necessary. 

At root is the age old battle between love and fear.  Why do we fill out paperwork?  Simple, because some lawyer or accountant is going to nail us, or the organization of which we take part.  Yet, in the past years have more shady scandals happened or less?  Worse still is that no one really likes doing what they do; or if they still do they feel hampered in by what society demands they must do.  I would love to only have school and work, but there are a myriad of other things to do.  

Just this morning, I tried to access a system that has all my old pay stubs.  Until 2010 or so, my company would give us physical pay stubs.  I would through them in the trash (sometimes I would remember to shred them).  However, the company decided to go paperless which is great for the environment, but requires all sorts of passwords (its password demands are the hardest I have ever seen).  After half-an-hour of trying to hack into my own system, I was still denied.  At time of writing, I am still waiting until I can access it.

This is just one part of the numerous things that keep us from reaching our dreams and goals.  It is important to learn about financial discipline, but it is also important to learn that testing has its limit.  Taxes and tuition.  Homework assignments and housework.  How much of all this is necessary; and how much is death by a thousand cuts.

When I read books or write papers, there is no real time for me to do it.  To really read or write, one needs time.  One needs at least an half-hour to start up and multiple breaks every forty-five minutes.  We can call that inefficient, but the human brain must gather momentum and must allow ideas time ruminate or gestate like food or drink.  Life, like music, is about the rests as well as the notes.

So, what must happen is a real talk about discipline and dreams.  When does one take control and when does one leave off?  I think the answer is in the flourishing of the human.  A human being who truly adds something to the story of humanity is one who links his or her dreams with the needs of the world.  If this the answer than we see that dreams and discipline naturally fall into place.  Yet we have become a society that has replaced dreams and disciplines with demands.  We now have no time to have dreams or discipline. When we dream it is a daydream, when we are disciplined it is by the law which is a lousy moral reforming agent.

Yet this is what is required of a reformation.  We need to stop imagining the world as it is ... only more efficient; and start imagining a better world.  Do what you can with the gifts that you have and the dreams that you have.  We must understand that we have to train up and be disciplined, but that we should not be incapacitated by that that disciplining process.  We have forgotten how to love in this age of fear.  We have forgotten the possibilities.  We have forgotten how to dream while we are awake.

Guilt Matters

Today in church, my priest spoke of how too often we speak of "Christian struggles" as if they are afterthoughts to "bad behavior."  We have already thrown in the towel and not really taken the sin as the disuniting thing it truly is.  A look at most of contemporary society sees the exact same thing from our everyday lives to our entertainment.  I am not arguing here for a world of extroverts, but rather one that takes others into consideration.  Perhaps one of the first places to start is to look at guilt.

Our American culture has done everything in its power to remove guilt and shame from the American experience.  In fact the only people who are told to feel guilty are those who advocate guilt and shame.  Yet at the root guilt and shame deal with the fact that human beings feel disunion.  Public policies and even debates are not built on love and reconciliation, but rather a zero-sum game.  The political right and political left as well as their religious counter-parts are guilty of this.  Not that being guilty has any force behind it, so I shall say what is my most inflammatory criticism.  

I do not feel nearly so guilty or ashamed as I do; and you probably feel it too.  If you are like me, you probably have been told that you shouldn't feel ashamed or guilty.  If you are religious, you have probably been told that "your sins are forgiven and everything is okay."  If you are not religious, you have probably been told that guilt and shame are religious deadweight getting in the way of your self-actualization.  The fact is that there is grace of course (both in the religious and secular sense to an extent), but we must take into account the importance of being ashamed for our actions and being convicted of our guilt.

Guilt, as people point out, is when the self feels as if he or she has violated some law; while shame is more about violating the group dynamic.  While there are times when people must question what people call law or group dynamics, the pendulum has swung way too far to the other extreme.  How often do we justify our own sense of entitlement over and against what seems to be natural law or the needs of society.  This is the time when guilt and shame kick in to tell us something is wrong; yet our society (be it secular or religious) tells us that this feeling is the aberration and not the thing for which we are fighting.  When a normal person commits a crime, that person feels guilt.  To override this feeling, leads to continuing its behavior and creating disunion between us and the rest of the world.  We feel as if we have become special cases and the world owes us something.  In the end a world without guilt or shame leads to hell on earth.  Guilt is a warning light, it is annoying and painful but must be answered.

When we speak of struggling with something, let us take it seriously.  This is some outside parasite and disease struggling to overtake us and replicate itself in us.  It is hell attempting to turn us into carriers of hell.  Yet, if we recognize it and don't delude ourselves into thinking it is something which it is not; we must fight it and struggle with it and hopefully have it rejected from us.  Christians say this is the work of the Holy Spirit, and I firmly believe that one cannot fight something with nothing.  Yet, for the secularist it should be pointed out that one can overcome many "sins" with hard work and discipline.  For the Christian though, sin can only be rooted out by accepting the Holy Spirit and His work of the Church and the Gospel.  Yet we must not pretend that we are saved just because we have invoked the Holy Spirit; a life which is changed will produce the reality of reconciliation that we seek.  A life which remains unchanged means that we have forgotten that we are all still very guilty and have much to be ashamed of.  It is not a pleasant message, but it is a hopeful one.  The more unpleasant message would be to say we are all okay and beautiful just the way we are; but anyone who has spent time with a person who believes such nonsense about himself or herself is quickly looking for the nearest exit.  Rather we look to be with and become the person who sees the flaws in one's life; works to living each day a little bit more in tune with law and neighbor; and sees that the work of the Holy Spirit will mend our lives only as much as we take Him seriously.

The church of "I'm okay, you're okay."

Its a bit too late to blog, but I am trying to make it a point to do so every night that I can.  I can't help but think we are doing this all terribly wrong in the church.  It bothers me that we seem to downplay sin and the problems of the church.  We have an almost bipolar notion of the evils of the world.  At one moment we talk about total depravity and the fallen world as if it is so impossibly evil, and then the next we find ourselves talking about is wondrous beauty.  I can't help but think we are doing this all a grave disservice.  The world is truly atrocious; but there is something which preserves it.  However, American Christianity becomes so focused on that redemptive grace that we often exclude the evil from which it stands in stark contrast.

It is not enough for us to say how wonderful the church is and then overlook the fact that it is made of very fallible human beings.  We must acknowledge that the church is made of flawed people such as ourselves and work for a reconciliation with how it should be.  The world sees us as patting ourselves on the back; but questions why we do such things.  Our accomplishments do not warrant such self-congratulatory behavior.  It is here where someone would say, "exactly, and that is the point of grace."  I would ask, "Then why are we congratulating ourselves for it?  Grace is not something we bestow upon ourselves."  We demand this "cheap grace" for our own merits, but the church demonstrates just how foolish it is to live expecting merits.  The church's failures show our desperate need for reconciliation and represent a microcosm of God's plan for the redemption of the cosmos.  Truly it starts here first ... that is, if we are humble enough to see it.  We must make the church the family it has always declared itself to be, only then will we be reflecting real grace and not the "I'm okay, you're okay" grace of a people who haven't yet given up on redemption by the law.