“The future is around all of us, and it looks very much like the past.” – Mother Superior Sheeana, at the founding of the Orthodox School on Synchrony
[From: Sandworms of Dune, by Brian Herbert & Kevin Johnson; pg. 539.]
In the context of the book, the above is a positive statement. Again, in my mind, it brings up aspects of our present culture that work contrary to our future well-being. One of those aspects is a generation’s disposition to believe that the past is bad or a least a negative. I keep coming back to this 2,009 year-old thing we call Christianity. The past is full of horrific atrocities and glorious accomplishments, but all that humanity has been through over these past millennia within the Christian experience presents to us today, from that which has survived and still speaks, a wisdom that we need to pay attention to.
In my context, with our gasping attempts to save this Church we flail around with the same attitudinal mistakes that led us to this place. We think that in our modern and sophisticated age we can create with our own new thoughts in our own way the solutions for a new dawn, a new order, a Utopian vision of our own making. We fail to realize that the Tradition provides us with what we need as a solid foundation upon which to build, because within the lived experiences of people over thousands of years is wisdom. That which speaks to the deepest part of us remains, survives, and calls out deep to deep despite our tendency to look upon past understanding and experience as pedestrian, antiquated, primitive, unenlightened, and not up to the challenges of 21st. century existence. What has survived for 2,000 years will survive another 2,000 years. Technology changes (and I’m glad of that), but the human “heart” remains the same.
Our challenge is to see the wisdom in and understand the ancient-future process of steady re-formation within ourselves as we give ourselves to this faith, die to ourselves and live to the life God sustains. How do we do it in this time, within this culture, recognizing that our lives are of an ancient-future dynamic – we receive from ages of ages and pass onto world without end.
Category Archives: politics/culture
The Torture Memos
Speaking of torture…
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| We Don’t Torture | ||||
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Discimination, Civil Rights, Religious Freedom…
Politically speaking, I have always been drawn to Libertarianism. There are shortcomings, of course, like in any “System of this World,” including my belief that the common good needs to be given a far greater emphasis within Libertarian thought than many Libertarians I know tend to give it. Perhaps, however, if greater attention is given to the common good in opposition to individualism then it might cease to be truly “Libertarian.”
Anyway, I’m linking to A Stitch in Haste post entited, “On Religious Bigots’ New-Found (Faux) Libertarianism,” a blog-post of a self-described Libertarian about the Religious Rights’ campaign to oppose any type of legal consideration for the civil rights of gays because they claim that equal protection or anti-discrimination protection of homosexuals as a minority class would conflict with their right of free exercise of religion (believing that homosexuality is sin and should be opposed at all cost for the sake of the moral health of homosexuals and society in general).
A portion of their argument revolves around the perceived religious right that Christians who oppose homosexuality can deny their economic services or products to homosexuals because providing such things to homosexuals conflicts with their religious belief. For example, a Christian doctor that believes homosexuality is a sin should be able to refuse to artificially inseminate a lesbian couple or a Christian owned camp-ground should be able to say, “No,” to a gay couple that wants to use the pavilion to get married.
To be honest, I think they should have that right, regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the outcome, despite that fact that I might be discriminated against. And the Libertarian blogger seems to agree – to a degree, I suspect.
Yet, and here is the kicker, as the blogger suggests, the Religious Right is not willing to be consistent with their arguments or positions (shocker, I know!). The reality is, and most people get this, they only want freedom for themselves and their positions. They only want to discriminate against – homosexuals! When the same logic is used against other minority groups, such as blacks or Jews or the handicapped, they would absolutely deny a religious right to discriminate, but for homosexuals they hypocritically demand such a right. Their arguments are not based on logically consistent and rational precepts, but only on their right to discriminate against homosexuals. The author writes:
If the religious bigots really want to invoke libertarian arguments to legitimize their bigotry, then they better be prepared to be judged by real libertarians about the entire spectrum of libertarian issues — including separation of church and state.
As I just wrote, I think there is the possibility for provision for people to not provide services to others for whatever reason. I know that is not politically correct, and perhaps for reasons of the common good it is wrong of me. Yet…
The thing is, if groups of people want to make the argument that they have a right to discriminate against others (for religious or any other reason), then they cannot turn around and scream bloody-murder when they find someone or other groups that discriminates against them – which is exactly what the Religious Right is doing.
If they want to discriminate, then they must be willing to suffer the consequences (which they aren’t) and be willing to be discriminated against (which they aren’t). You can’t have it both ways – you can’t demand the right to discriminate and expect no one to discriminate against you! If I declare my believe that there is an aspect of civil liberty is to either give or deny to others my services or products, then I have to be willing to acknowledge that others have the exact same right to deny me their services or products. The question is whether I’m willing to face such discrimination. Of course, I’ve encountered too many “liberals” who declare no such right to discriminate even as they so obviously (and blindly) discriminate against those with whom they disagree.
Hypocrisy abounds in America, and regretfully within Christianity (nothing new, anywhere, I know). It is one reason why so many people look upon the Church with such disdain or indifference. We are our own worst enemies.
Alright already, I’ve joined the Twittery. There is, of course, much more to all this than simply grandiose egos thinking the world wants to know that they are doing or thinking from moment to moment – well, perhaps Ashton Kutcher is the exception. Take that, CNN. Can he punk with 140 characters?
I heard someone the other day say that someone was Tweeting the mass at St. Paul’s (my St. Paul’s). I think something is lost in the experience, something lost in translation, although it could be anything like “Mass for Shut-ins?” Place the babies next to the TV screen. HEAL.
So, I joined. Who the heck cares what I’ve got to say or might conceivably be interested in what I’m doing? Let me answer – No one but my mother! God bless her.
Twitter. Ugh. Yet, for a generation it will be as normal as breathing. And, I can see the enormous potential not yet realized.
“GloboChrist” or is that “RoboChrist”
The following are a couple paragraphs from a review by Christopher Benson entitled, “The Messenger Is the Message: How will you obey the Great Commission today?” of Carl Raschke new book “GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn,” one of the books in Baker Academic’s series concerning Post-Modernism and the Church. I look forward to read it; although “GloboChrist” in the title? Really?
Obeying the Great Commission in the global cosmopolis does not involve a mission trip to “lost peoples at the margins of civilization”; the margins have become mainstream, while the mainstream has become marginalized. Nor does it involve sophisticated marketing campaigns. We make disciples of all nations as the pre-Constantinian church did in the face of “daunting and promiscuous pluralism”: through incarnational ministry, being “little Christs” to the neighbor; through contextualization of the message, speaking the idiom of the neighbor; and through relevance, hearing the needs of the neighbor. Raschke adds that relevance should not be confused with the prosperity gospel, “seeker-sensitive” ministry, the “hipper than thou” emergent church movement, the social gospel redux, or “bobo” (bohemian bourgeois) culture. Relevance is radical relationality…
GloboChrist ought to be regarded as an essential postscript to Lesslie Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society. Raschke is at his best when he assumes the prophetic mantle, judging the Western evangelical church for “whoring after the false gods of spiritual and material consumption”; uncovering how the religious left is just “a fun-house mirror of the religious right”; questioning if Islamism is “an understandable reaction against the global overreach of the pax Americana”; chiding fundamentalists for idolatrously substituting an “eighteenth-century propositional rationality for the biblical language of faith”; pleading for the Emergent Village to stop replaying “the modernist-fundamentalist debates of a century ago”; and exhorting postmodern Christians to overcome their passivity and “privatized sentimentality” with a witness that possesses “the ferocity of the jihad and paradoxically also the love for the lost that Jesus demonstrated.” [emphasis mine]
The only thing, I really don’t like the term, “GloboChrist.” It sounds stupid, in my humble opinion. The last line of the quoted paragraphs above, along with the term “GloboChrist,” well, I just keep envisioning “RoboChrist” and I don’t like it. If we aren’t careful, “GloboChrist” will be the next rendition of the “Pax Americana” crusade waged by certain overly aggressive, culturally myopic groups in the form of “RoboChrist.” It will happen, you know, and they will completely miss the point.
It is easier believing in a super-being (RoboChrist) that will force everyone to “do the right thing/believe the right thing,” then to die-to-self in order to do a much more difficult form of ministry that involves incarnational being.
Day of Silence Protest
So, here is what I find funny – American Family Associate protests schools allowing students to remain silent during school, particularly during “instructional time.” Now, I know that AFA is protesting the Day of Silence – they protest anything that might lead to a positive image of anything that smacks of homosexuality. But, read the announcement below.
The politicized Religious Right continues to go further and further to the extreme (and the ridiculous) in their attempts to justify their position. They absolutely have a right to believe that homosexuality is sin and will result in the damnation of anyone who “practices” homosexual behavior, but they use the issues surrounding homosexuality and same-sex unions as scapegoats to turn away attention from their own contribution to and culpability for the decline of marriage in the West, and to maintain their political power and money.
They protest the right given to students on this day to remain silent all day. Most teachers and schools would welcome a day when students willingly remain silent. Anway, here is the announcement:
April 7, 2009
Dear Friend,
The Day of Silence, which is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), fast approaches. This year it will take place in most public schools on April 17. On this day, thousands of public high schools and increasing numbers of middle schools will allow students to remain silent throughout an entire day-even during instructional time-to promote GLSEN’s socio-political goals and its controversial, unproven, and destructive theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality.
Parents must actively oppose this hijacking of the classroom for political purposes. Please join the national effort to restore to public education a proper understanding of the role of government-subsidized schools. You can help de-politicize the learning environment by calling your child out of school if your child’s school allows students to remain silent during instructional time on the Day of Silence.
Parents should no longer passively countenance the political usurpation of public school classrooms through student silence.
If students will be permitted to remain silent, parents can express their opposition most effectively by calling their children out of school on the Day of Silence and sending letters of explanation to their administrators, their children’s teachers, and all school board members. One reason this is effective is that most school districts lose money for each student absence.
School administrators err when they allow the classroom to be disrupted and politicized by granting students permission to remain silent throughout an entire day.
Google Street View, Morality, and consequences of Post-Christendom
The effects of technological advances upon society, our sense of group, and our sense of the individual self often has unintentional and/or unexpected consequences. Technological advances do something to us, not as if a particular technology itself acts upon us (although some technologies do), but that technological advances prompt in us or cause within us… something.
I love to play with new technology. In my previous life as a techno-geek taking care of the technology needs of an academic unit at Kent State University, I would get all excited when we got in the newest and greatest pieces of technology. The secretaries fondly laughed at me. It was great! I marvel at the advances we see now and particularly that are just around the corner.
Just like most everything in life, there are good ramifications of technological advancement and there are bad. Those who observe and foresee, it can be exhilarating and disheartening.
As our society moves more fully into a Post-Christian disposition and understanding of itself and as technology changes, there will be some interesting and perhaps unexpected results. Do we recognize even the seemingly insignificant connections between the development of social structures and systems and our perceptions of normality as many of our foundational social precepts change? The Rule of Unintended Consequences. Hindsight, again.
So, a recent commentary by Frank Skinner in the TimesOnline (UK) about Google Earth is both humorous and poignant. What I really like about the article is the author’s take on being observed and the unease that it causes many people. He says that in a culture that no longer has a common grounding in the Christian faith, where we understand that God is always watching over us, the experience of “Street View” on Google Maps can inadvertently show someone caught in an act that s/he believes embarrassing or was believed to be covert, but now can be seen by anyone with a Internet connection. Street View as social commentary. He then comments on morality and what sometimes compels us to act in moral ways that we might not, otherwise. Great connection!
I think this ever-growing hysteria about the invasion of privacy in Great Britain might be a direct result of the secularisation of our society. As a Roman Catholic, I’ve spent my whole life believing that my every move is being monitored. God, after all, is the ultimate CCTV. There have been many occasions when this sense of being watched has led me to do the right thing rather than the easier or more pleasurable wrong one. We hate those intermittent yellow boxes on modern roads but they do, generally speaking, cause us to drive more safely.
Maybe, now that God doesn’t feature in most people’s lives, society need things like Street View and surveillance cameras to make people behave better. I don’t suppose the citizens whose sins were exposed by Google fear they’ll end up sizzling on Satan’s griddle as a result but all this fuss about images of drunkenness, crime and lust does suggest a certain sense of shame.
Another picture that got removed was a naked toddler playing in a park. A few years back such an image would have been seen as a symbol of joyous innocence. Now it just reminds us of another social evil we’d rather not think about. Maybe Street View is the mirror that society doesn’t want to look into.
Via: Titusonenine
Imago Dei
Christianity declines in the West all the while seekers of truth, of life well lived, and of a good society only grow. Those who seek such things are looking not to the Church, which claims to provide what is needed for a “good life,†but they look elsewhere. General society no longer finds the Church or Christians compelling. If they look upon us and see themselves only, why should they heed or consider what we say about God’s good life?
Civil society, with respect to the common good, continues to decay into hyper-individualism, unrestrained consumerism, conflict, selfishness, fear and loneliness. The present experience of the Church joins in… and is compromised.
If we are created in the Image of God, why do we not look like it? Why do we not treat one another as Christ calls us in the two Great Commandments? Why do most of our lives look more like the lives of people who make no claim of God, rather than the great Fathers and Mothers of the Christian Faith and Tradition? We worthily strive to do good works to serve and save humanity, but without the realization of the Cure of Souls the good works are empty – anyone can do good works and material good works last only for a time.
Is it that the Systems-of-this-World are too alluring and seductive for average people to recognize their fallacious promises? Is it that too much energy or effort is required to turn from the fallacy to a way of living that is so contrary to our current culture all wrapped up in the Systems? Is it that average people see no real alternative? Is it that Satan or the Enemies-of-our-Faith are too strong? Is it that we misunderstand what it means to be Christian in Western society – in the similar way that the Jewish leadership of Jesus’ time misunderstood what it meant to live out the Covenant with God? Is it that there really is no God and we deceive ourselves? Could it be that we have never really experienced God or the life God grants to us in the first place? It is a seditious life God calls us to – we are given a radical invitation, but few pick up the call. Have I?
If those who are yet to find God do not see something different and compelling about our lives (the essential nature of how we consider ourselves and the dispositions we possess and the way to treat one another), then why should they consider what we have to say? If there is no discernible difference between “us†and “them,†than are the claims made by Christians of a better way of life misguided, naïve, duplicitous, false? What?
The two Great Commands of Jesus compel us to live in such a way that we find life, that we find freedom, that we find healing. If these claims cannot be experienced honestly by even those who insist they are true, then we must ask why not? Why does the Church not grow? Because of us?
This is not an attempt to reform The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Communion, or anything other than ourselves – our souls and bodies. We come together and are tired of the internal fighting that destroys the unity of Christ’s Mystical Body; we are tired of the continual accusation and hubris as we take upon ourselves the role of Judge; we are tired to the incessant compulsion to attempt to jettison tradition and remake the Faith in our own image rather than trust the lived experience of faithful men and women of over 2,000 years. Here is what we want to do: Live life to the full as God intends. We, as Anglicans, used to be able to recognize that desire in even those with whom we vehemently disagreed and with whom we still broke bread together even in the midst of great debate and argument.
We have been co-opted by the Systems-of-this-World and are blind to their deteriorative effects upon us – to the detriment of the call of God for a better world that can only be realized through the regeneration of mind, heart, and soul. We recognize it, and we strive to be not a part of it any longer so that we can be for our own good and the good of the world a people. It starts with me, with you, with each of us that seek God in truth and candor. Let us be about the Cure of Souls.
Say what you mean, and do what you say!
Interesting news, of late:
It seems that the highest consumers of on-line pornography reside in “conservative” states. The state with the highest rate of pornography viewing – Utah! You have to be careful not to extend the interpretation of the data too far, but it is interesting nevertheless!
From the article.
However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.
Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year’s presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.
Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don’t explicitly restrict gay marriage.
I remember when I was working with Chi Alpha, the campus ministry organization of the Assemblies of God. During the 1980’s, a friend of mine was the campus pastor at Missouri State University in Springfield, the headquarters city for the Assemblies of God (Mecca, as we jokingly called Springfield back then). The Assemblies have two college in Springfield – the liberal-arts Evangel University and Central Bible College. A doctor approached my campus pastor friend about a problem the doctor’s clinic was experiencing. The doctor asked my friend what in the world was going on at the two Assemblies colleges because of the incredible number of girls from the schools that were showing up for abortions! You got it, not so much from the 21,000 students of Missouri State, but the born-again, spirit-filled students from the two little Assemblies of God colleges.
My friend told me that the two colleges knew of the problem, but never broached the subject or tried to deal with it. Why? Because to admit such a thing by dealing with it would bring shame upon the schools and lower enrollment. After all, what God-fearing parent would want to send their child to a “safe Christian college” when there was an outbreak of fornication and abortion. This is the corner American-Evangelicalism (or Mormonism) has painted itself into. A lot of what passes for religious faith-informing-behavior in the U.S. comes out to be nothing much more than hypocritical blathering. I have no doubt that the adherents truly want to live as they proclaim they do or how that demand we all should, but the “system” that they’ve developed and hide behind just doesn’t bear out – it just doesn’t work, no matter how loudly or stubbornly it is proclaimed to work. Just like reparative-therapy just doesn’t make homosexuals into heterosexuals.
A lot of what religion claims to be just doesn’t match up with reality. (And, I believe that we are called to live holy lives and that God does enable such lives to be lived!)
Oh, those Moravians
The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops is meeting. On the agenda is the subject of full communion with the Moravian Church. They are an interesting Church. According to their history, they began 60 years before Martin Luther and 100 years before the establishment of the Anglican Church (CofE). I first remember seeing the Moravians when I helped a graduate school colleague move to Allentown/Bethlehem, PA. The Moravians have a school and seminary, as well as their U.S. headquarters, there.
Like religious Quakers and Anabaptists, there is something that I am drawn to in Moravian “systems” or disciplines or ways of thinking and doing.
From the Wikipedia entry for them:
Spirit of the Moravian Church
An account of the ethos of the Moravian Church is given by one of its British Bishops, C H Shawe. In a lecture series delivered at the Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Shawe described the Spirit of the Moravian Church as having five characteristics. These are simplicity, happiness, unintrusiveness, fellowship and the ideal of service.
Simplicity is a focus on the essentials of faith and a lack of interest in the niceties of doctrinal definition. Shawe quotes Zinzendorf’s remark that ‘The Apostles say: “We believe we have salvation through the grace of Jesus Christ ….” If I can only teach a person that catechism I have made him a divinity scholar for all time’ (Shawe, 1977, p 9). From this simplicity flow secondary qualities of genuineness and practicality.
Happiness is the natural and spontaneous response to God’s free and gracious gift of salvation. Again Shawe quotes Zinzendorf: ‘There is a difference between a genuine Pietist and a genuine Moravian. The Pietist has his sin in the foreground and looks at the wounds of Jesus; the Moravian has the wounds in the forefront and looks from them upon his sin. The Pietist in his timidity is comforted by the wounds; the Moravian in his happiness is shamed by his sin’ (p 13).
Unintrusiveness is based on the Moravian belief that God positively wills the existence of a variety of churches to cater for different spiritual needs. There is no need to win converts from other churches. The source of Christian unity is not legal form but everyone’s heart-relationship with the Saviour.
Fellowship is based on this heart-relationship. Shawe says: ‘The Moravian ideal has been to gather together kindred hearts … Where there are “Christian hearts in love united”, there fellowship is possible in spite of differences of intellect and intelligence, of thought, opinion, taste and outlook. … Fellowship [in Zinzendorf’s time] meant not only a bridging of theological differences but also of social differences; the artisan and aristocrat were brought together as brothers and sat as equal members on the same committee’ (pp 21,22).
The ideal of service entails happily having the attitude of a servant. This shows itself partly in faithful service in various roles within congregations but more importantly in service of the world ‘by the extension of the Kingdom of God’. Historically, this has been evident in educational and especially missionary work. Shawe remarks that none ‘could give themselves more freely to the spread of the gospel than those Moravian emigrants who, by settling in Herrnhut [ie, on Zinzendorf’s estate], had gained release from suppression and persecution’ (p 26).
In all of our Episcopalian and Anglican fighting over the last 6 years, what battles within me comes from two angles. The first comes from my American-Evangelical-Holiness and Arminian upbringing that says that belief in what we know as traditional Christian teaching and concepts are vital to real faith and relationship with God. There can be corruption of belief and a self-caused falling away from grace and salvation. We must guard against such corruption and be holy as much as it is possible with us.
The second comes from my knowledge of the effects of cultural inculcation upon our ability to understand Scripture and God’s instruction to us, and of the co-opting of the Way of Christ by the Systems-of-this-World. We so easily mistake cultural conviction for the Gospel. The Culture assimilates the profoundly contrary message and call of Jesus Christ and warps it so to justify its own existence. We fall prey to its allure. So, most of the Christian experience in most of our churches tends to be profoundly deficient. (And one wonders why fewer and fewer people find the Church to be compelling or a something worth much attention.) Given all that, our human fallibility, and our tendency to need to justify our own desires and proclivities, we tend to want to impose our myopic concepts upon all, demanding that all others capitulate to our sectarian theological precepts (or our national interests). We tend to loose trust that God will be God, God will be judge, God will be saviour, God will be sustainer, God is perfectly capable of managing His Church, and that the immediacy of NOW does not impinge upon God’s ability to do as He pleases, when He pleases, how He pleases. We are so short-sighted. We are so insecure in our faith. We lack trust in the very God we proclaim.
I fight between wanting to demand people believe “this way†(force acceptance of a check-off list of doctrines or tenants that makes things nice and neat) and the freedom realized from a willingness to allow people their own way and for God to make His own judgments about who is in and who is out. (Surely, God does make decisions based on His criteria alone about who is in and out – the choice is given to us and by our decisions we opt out ourselves.)
What do I want to say? I find it hard to let go! To let go of the fear I have of being wrong, the fear I have of the corruption of the Gospel, the fear I have that other souls will be lost because false teachings concerning the necessities of the Gospel overwhelm us. There are reasons for such fear, truly. But the question is the response to the reasons! The battle for the right response rages within me. Sign this covenant, this declaration, use these exact words, accept this precept, or else… or realizing that God works beyond my ability to rightly categorize, philosophize, theologize, and all that.
Beyond my Evangelical background and the experience of God I discovered through it, I have learned of the vital importance of the Tradition. That which survives over time, over millennia, among a vast array of cultures, can be trusted. I am becoming a Traditionalist, not because I demand conservation of prior institutional systems and doctrines of the Church catholic, but because that which lasts and changes lives is worthy to be proclaimed and intensely listened to.
We are too American. We are too haughty. We are too insecure. So, of the details of the Moravians above, I draw into myself ideas of a quite simplicity, happiness, un-intrusiveness, fellowship, and add to it Anglican comprehensiveness and a willingness to trust God that He will sort out our differences – differences that are probably based on internal stuff that doesn’t really come close to Jesus’ simple and profoundly difficult command to love God with all of my being and to love my neighbor as God enables me to love myself.
It isn’t that I have a problem with the traditional beliefs of the conservatives or the latitude and rebelliousness of the liberals, but I have a problem with either side demanding that they “really know,” that they are “absolutely right,” and their propensity to condemn outright the other side. The joy of the Lord is my strength, not my ascendancy to the 39-Articles or the Jesus Seminar. Anglicans used to strongly believe that “fellowship is possible in spite of differences of intellect and intelligence, of thought, opinion, taste and outlook.” We are loosing our ability to be in the via media. I fear that in full-communion with the Episcopal Church, we may infect the Moravians with our disease of vainglory, division, and hatred.