tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83417023047741129682024-03-13T16:40:54.523-07:00Writing to LiveOn the Road to Living WellJohn H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.comBlogger163125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-46293601501823385282022-12-31T10:14:00.001-08:002022-12-31T10:14:15.066-08:00My Kid's Oral History<p> Lately, I've read a few books that deal, at least in part, with the origins of the biblical New Testament. My favorites include Bart Ehrmann's <i>Jesus, Interrupted</i> and George Lamsa's <i>New Testament Origin</i>. Ehrmann's work tries to review basic, consensus scholarship on the gospels and New Testament evolution, while Lamsa's work from the mid-20th century argues that the original New Testament was written in Aramaic and that we can still read it in the Peshitta. What I most love about the relationship between these two books is that they address a common statement made by certain Christians of today: Christians have always agreed/thought the same way and now liberals are changing everything. First of all, Ehrmann's book, while not dismissing the sentiment, clearly shows that on <i>what</i> Christians may have agreed is vastly different than modern "traditional" Christians like to think. Secondly, Ehrmann does thoroughly make the case that Christians have not always agreed. Prior to "orthodoxy," Christianity was all over the place; and since the establishment of orthodoxy, still plenty of Christians have lived outside consensus theology and scholarship. Including, perhaps, George Lamsa. Lamsa's argument about the origins of the New Testament falls outside the consensus scholarship Ehrmann describes, not just in the main argument but in smaller streams of thought as well, making a comparison fascinating. </p><p><br /></p><p>For me, the most fascinating element of comparing the two works is how they treat oral history. Ehrmann follows the course that most moderns would: oral history is unreliable. Therefore, he says, a generation or two between Jesus's life and the writing of the first gospel is like a game of telephone. We can't rely upon accurate details. It is generally understood that the gospel writers weren't writing down absolute fact. Lamsa doesn't contradict the conclusion but, as a necessary part of his argument, suggests that oral history and traditions are reliable. </p><p><br /></p><p>I remember back to my seminary days, too, reading a bunch of introductory books and textbooks on the Bible, each with their own take on oral tradition's reliability. Most of them assume that we all agree that keeping history orally is like playing telephone. At the end of the telephone line, you get something close, usually, but nonetheless humorously different. </p><p><br /></p><p>There's a funny scene in <i>Curb Your Enthusiasm </i>(you can assume it's inappropriate, then) where Larry David is at a party and his friend Susie is playing telephone with some kids. The first game ends with, "My dog has fleas," but started, "The garden has trees." Then Larry joins the game and it ends, "I love tits," but started, "I love pigs." Interestingly, it apparently remained "I love pigs" all the way to Larry, four people down the line, and it was only Larry's perverse mind, while staring at a woman's bosom, that changed it. In my experience that scene captures how the game often plays out. Rarely are the words all changed, as in the first game seen, and sometimes none are changed. If any words are changed, it's probably only one. If more words than that are changed I usually questioned whether someone did it on purpose to spice up what is normally a lame game, even for kids.</p><p><br /></p><p>Even supposing oral history is like telephone, then, it doesn't necessarily mean oral history and tradition are unreliable. The difference by the end, supposing no one has purposely changed the story, will be minimal or non-existent. Now, Ehrmann does suggest that some scribes, let alone those passing on the story orally, purposely altered the story for it to make more sense to them. That makes sense to me. But Ehrmann goes on to say that scholars can generally piece together what the original or consensus version was because of the number of manuscripts we have. By reading them all together, a good scholar can see what was changed and why. My question, which is why I've never bought the argument against oral history, is that the same process would surely apply to oral scribes. Would not one teller of the story, in hearing an altered version, then seek to correct the altered version? </p><p><br /></p><p>Indeed, the conception of an oral tradition as a game of telephone is wrong. It is not. Rather, it would be like a group of players sitting in a circle and one saying aloud to the second a phrase, asking for the second person to repeat it back, and then only if the first person hears what they said can the second person then say aloud the phrase to the third person, repeating the same process. Cultures whose stories and traditions have been passed on orally would agree. Every family or tribe assigns a person to be their storyteller apprentice, whose job it then is to learn the stories from the current storyteller. The current storyteller ensures that the apprentice learns the stories word for word.</p><p><br /></p><p>Before I continue, let me disassociate any of what I'm saying from an analysis of Ehrmann's review or Lamsa's argument. I don't intend to pick one over the other or prove or disprove anything. Ehrmann is still right that the gospel writers had purposes other than fixing fact. He's right for all the other reasons he lists other than the "obvious" case of oral tradition's unreliability. All I want to say is that oral history is, can be, and should be extremely reliable--at least, equally as reliable as written history.</p><p><br /></p><p>Whether you know it or not, you have personal experience with oral history's reliability and accuracy. If you don't, I'll share a story that you can claim as your own. I'm sure, though, that my kid can't be so unique as to be the only one who remembered or remembers stories. </p><p><br /></p><p>My oldest son, Sebastian, was in such a hurry to learn how to read that he learned how to fake it. At the age of three, he had us read one of two stories every night. Kids have favorites, that's for sure. Parents have to deal with it. My coping mechanism was to do voices for characters and to read the story the way I wanted to read it. What I mean by that is that, in a few places, I reworded the story because obviously I know better than the author. Week after week, we'd read one of these two stories, oftentimes both. Eventually, after a couple of months, Sebastian corrected me. It was a <i>Cars</i> related story and I had read, "Doc was not happy." Those were and are the actual words on the page. Funnily enough, those were words I thought should have been changed to, "Doc was furious," so Sebastian had heard me read it that way for a couple of months. His correcting me, then, was actually incorrect. He wanted me to say, "Doc was furious." I must have been tired that night because I then accidentally skipped a page and Sebastian noticed that I had missed something. When I turned back to the right page, Sebastian then placed his index finger at the beginning of text and said, word for word, the words typed there. </p><p><br /></p><p>I went to bed that night praising our son to my wife because he could read. I didn't even need to teach him! My wife wondered aloud whether he had just memorized the story. So the next night I asked Sebastian to read the story to me. He agreed, opened up, and began to read the way he had read the missed page the night before. His index finger moved along the page with the words. A prodigy! Unfortunately, six or seven pages along, I realized my wife was right. Sebastian would pause after he turned a page, look at the picture, and then "read." He was using the pictures as cues. And the act of moving his finger, I realized, was learned from me. I was in the habit of reading that way to him to show him that the words coming out of my mouth were printed on the page. It became evident that he was simply reciting how he learned the story and the act of reading from me because there were parts he got wrong. In one case he skipped a whole sentence and was a little surprised when he thought he ended the page's text but there were still words left to read. Occasional words and phrases were changed, even from my version, that could only have been the result of a faulty memory.</p><p><br /></p><p>Despite my initial disappointment, I was still and remain amazed. At three years old his memory was incredible. Sebastian could "read" the other favorite book in the same way. In terms of length of text, I would guess that each book comprised about one fifth of the gospel according to Mark, if not more. If a three year old can do that simply because he likes some stories, what about someone whose been tasked with remembering and telling stories about the one who saves us from sin and death?</p><p><br /></p><p>There's no evidence that I know of that anyone in early Christianity was chosen or tasked to be the community's storyteller. I don't think that changes anything because oral tradition was ubiquitous. Besides, we have no problem accepting Homer's epic poems or, closer to modernity, actors' renditions. From what I remember, Homer lived and composed his poems a good five hundred years prior to either of them being written down. Perhaps scholars don't care whether the Homer we have was the original Homer--I don't care, either--but literature scholars also know that poetry uses cues to aid oral recitation. Indeed, poetry may have evolved the way it has because of, first, the need for memorization for oral recitations and, second, the development of the printed word. Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter for a reason. Not only was it a style but it also helped actors remember their lines. If you get stuck with a word or two, you just need to know where you are: if you've ended on an unstressed syllable, your next word must begin with a stressed. Pictures, like the ones Sebastian used, or like the stained glass adorning most older churches, are the best cues, but poets and storytellers always used cues within the text itself. While still impressive, Sebastian's memorization is in no way unique. If he didn't have pictures, he would have found other ways to memorize his favorite stories.</p><p><br /></p><p>Sebastian needed the story repeated many times over for him to remember. No doubt the same would have been and is true for oral storytellers. That doesn't at all limit the breadth of what oral tradition could encompass. Again, we can look to actors performing in a troupe. In the days of Shakespeare, especially, and even now for those traveling troupes still operating, actors have a bunch of plays stored away in their memory. How many depends on the troupe. What's incredible, though, is that each actor would need multiple parts memorized for each play, in case of illness and also to give the director leeway for creativity. It's not as if the amount of repetition to memorize all four gospels, for instance, would then be superhuman.</p><p><br /></p><p>My experience with my son does also prove, one could say, the unreliability of oral tradition and history. My changing "not happy" to "furious" does affect the meaning. To not be happy simply means the absence of happiness whereas "furious" states an active emotion. It's slight but no less important. Sebastian's skipping and changing words also matters. With that said, he was three; if I wanted to correct him, I could have; and he had plenty of years ahead of him to get it right, if we cared.</p><p><br /></p><p>Aside from the fact that I learned we should read more of the Bible to our kids at night if they have such propensity to memorize, what really matters here is that, if you're reading or listening to someone making arguments about biblical history, biblical formation, or other historical developments, don't let them base their conclusions off an unreliability of oral history and tradition. To do so is to make a conclusion off a poorly thought out bias.</p>John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-55324797939214560412021-06-20T09:00:00.002-07:002021-06-20T09:00:30.060-07:00Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up: What is Seminary?<p>One of my previous churches is located across the street from a once shady fish store. At least, I assume it was a fish store because it had fish-shaped neon lights in the window. Never did I see anyone walk in or out during the day. Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought the situation strange. On a church meeting night, some undercover detectives staked out the place from the narthex of our building. Our meeting veered into talking what worship hymns the church knew but hadn't sung in awhile, so I offered to run to the sanctuary to pick up a hymnal. As I did, I turned on the light, and immediately heard, "Hey! Turn off the light! They can't know we're here!" Yikes. Seminary does not teach you how to assist a stakeout. Or even whether you should. Life and being a pastor teaches you how to be a pastor.</p><p>If seminary doesn't teach you how to be a pastor beyond the basic knowledge required, then what does seminary do? What is seminary? Why do we need it? Do we need it? Should our churches demand that clergy be seminary-trained? I'll conclude this series by answering these questions, sort of. </p><p>I started the Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up series with an eye particularly toward prospective seminarians and current clergy, to inform or remind them of what seminary is really like. Now I will definitively say that seminary should not ever be in the cards simply to learn more about yourself. You will learn about yourself, certainly, but you won't learn any more about yourself at seminary than by living life, if you're open to how God is teaching you. Life that happens at seminary is different, sure, which I'll get to, but you don't need to be saddled with debt for it. </p><p>A friend of mine has created and manages 40Form, a forty-day journal exploration into one's life, character, and priorities. It's a powerful experience. Maybe this is a shameless plug for 40Form. Or maybe it's an example of how we can learn about ourselves to the same extent as we would in seminary but in a forty-day course far less expensive. </p><p>What does seminary do for you? Think of a toolbox. Imagine that you are like me and don't like working with your hands and don't have any clue what should be in a toolbox or what the tools are for. Now imagine that someone has gifted you with a fully stocked toolbox so that you can now consider yourself an adult. Some of the tools in that toolbox you'll recognize and know how to use: hammer, screwdriver, nails. Other tools, however, you still won't recognize or, if you do, not know how or when to use them. That is, until you break something that needs a basin wrench or box-end wrench (what?). Then you might Google a solution to your problem and realize you have the tool already. It's the same with seminary. Many of the tools you need to be a good pastor are taught in seminary, even if most of the applications and tips are not covered. What you'll learn from being a pastor of how to be a pastor are, generally, advanced lessons on how to use the tools you were gifted in seminary.</p><p>For instance, during my first appointment, my father-in-law suddenly and tragically died. In the year I had been that church's pastor, my father-in-law had become a known and respected member of the church. My family and I were therefore not the only ones grieving. How could I minister to the members of my church while I, myself, was grieving? Essentially, I put to good use lessons on appropriate boundaries and the communal nature of grief. I didn't know that I was putting seminary into practice until afterwards when I reflected on the ordeal. The same lessons of boundaries, particularly related to self-care, significantly helped when my young family of four were re-appointed, bought a house, and moved to another state in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic--at the height of it, in fact. </p><p>Boundaries and self-care aren't the sexiest learnings from seminary. For survival and thriving, of pastor and church, they can be among the most important. But what traditionally expected lessons can one get at seminary? Personally I think that theological training is the most useful. </p><p>Theological training covers a wide territory. Exploring various theologies throughout Judaeo-Christian history, understanding how one's belief in x affects one's belief in y, reflecting on one's own experiences theologically, and reading the Bible accordingly. What will be useful to you, though, is how to live in a space where diverse theologies and understandings of the world are trying to live and associate in unity. Seminary will teach you how to manage the business and administrative side of effective ministry, but not how intense the pushback can be to even the simplest or apparently righteous decisions. That's where theological training comes in handy. Pushback will almost certainly relate back to differing theological positions. Trying to navigate issues within the church simply by convincing people that you're right, without having any idea why and how it is that others believe how it is they believe, will almost certainly fail. Or be miserable for everyone involved.</p><p>Theological training can also teach you how to guide others to deeper theological questioning and reflecting, to understand God, themselves, and others more meaningfully. Unfortunately, therein lies a problem. Too many in the church are not willing to explore. Often they are of the opinion that theology is unnecessary because the way that they read the Bible, understand God, and live out their faith is the correct way--the God-instructed way. Perhaps they're right, but those on other ends of the spectrum might believe the same. How are we supposed to live as the Body of Christ if there is indeed a spectrum? Clergy are trained in seminary in the very ways we least like to be challenged. The essence of John Wesley's "Catholic Spirit" is crucial, I think, to living as a unified Christian family serving and worshiping God together, using and empowering all the spiritual gifts of the congregation. Yet that spirit is often rejected because we don't want our pastor to teach us methods of learning about and knowing God more, we want our pastor to teach us the one right way. We judge how well the pastor is doing in that regard based on our <i>present conception of what is absolutely right</i>. </p><p>In other words, we're fairly certain we already know God's absolute truth, and that's why we don't see the necessity of a catholic spirit, of allowing or accepting diverse theologies and practices, even if they come from the pastor. If we reject what the pastor says or does because he or she is wrong, then we are basically saying that we only want our clergy to accumulate life experiences to pepper into the sermons that agree with us. Maybe that's why young clergy are often judged more harshly than older clergy. They haven't built up the life experience to compensate for differences of opinion.</p><p>All this is to say that the crucial lesson of seminary teaches clergy how necessary it is for churches to discern what role or roles they expect their pastor to fulfill. And what the role of the pastor should be. What's the point of having a pastor if we already know all we think we need to know? If we're already capable of reading the Bible with perfect accuracy on our own? Of judging the pastor's every word and action because we're so perfectly in the know? It's entirely possible that, in the last assessment, we don't need a pastor--we just need someone to stand up in Sunday worship and say words. I say that sarcastically but it is a legitimate ecclesiastical position.</p><p>Some basic questions can help us flesh out how we understand the role of clergy and what we expect of them. They may seem silly but they're serious. All the questions will be asked as "do..." but could be replaced with "should..." </p><p>Do we call it the pastor's office or study? Is it off limits when the pastor's not there?</p><p>Do we listen to the pastor if they preach or teach something unfamiliar or disagreeable? Do we reject it? Do we challenge them? Do we blindly accept? Or do we take what they say and pray on it?</p><p>Do we prefer an older pastor? Or a younger pastor? A pastor the same color, sex, and orientation as us? From the same socioeconomic strata?</p><p>What do we think when a female pastor wears flats, rather than high heels, in the pulpit? Or when a pastor takes their shoes off? Or when a pastor dresses down? </p><p>What do we think when a pastor curses? Or almost curses, with words like, "pissed off" or "crap"? What do we think when a pastor speaks in a seemingly irreverent way?</p><p>What do we think when a pastor lives in a way that we feel is unholy? Or not to the standard of clergy?</p><p>What do we think when a pastor seems to spend all their time preparing sermon and Bible studies and not with people of the church? Or when the pastor seems to spend all their time out in the community and not with the people of the church? Or when the pastor does spend all their time with the people of the church, and not out in the community? And other variations.</p><p>Going to seminary doesn't suddenly transform a person into superman/woman. A pastor can only do so much. There are a bunch of roles a pastor has, historically, and is now expected to fulfill, and we have to figure out our priorities. That is true for the pastor and for the church she or he serves. Not only do we need to discern our priorities, we need to reflect upon our theology and expectations generally. If our expectations are that a seminarian will meet all our expectations, especially if those expectations are unexamined, we're being a bit silly.</p><p>On the other hand, if we learn the reality of seminary more, what actually happens there, what it's all about, what you learn and what you don't learn, we can perhaps better discern what hopes and dreams we'll place on the pastor; we can perhaps better live into our own spiritual gifts for the sake of God and God's church, rather than expecting the pastor to do it all. Your church's best hope is for each and every person to commit to living their faith no matter who the pastor is and to do so with a loving, catholic spirit. So best to know that your seminary-trained pastor (if you have one) is still a humorously normal person also doing their best to faithfully live their discipleship with you, with some theological training.</p><p>Through all these stories, I hope and pray you've decided, decided to follow Jesus. Don't put that responsibility on the pastor, and if you're a pastor, don't add responsibility you can't meet. Reframe the relationship between church and pastor, clergy and lay, so that everyone's gifts and training can best be used to glorify God.</p>John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-11966893728965145192021-06-19T09:02:00.003-07:002021-06-19T09:02:36.116-07:00Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up: Grace<p> </p><p> There's a lot that seminary doesn't teach you. That may seem obvious to you. What may not seem obvious is that seminary doesn't teach you the most important, transformational and challenging elements of being a pastor. </p><p>Seminary doesn't teach you, for instance, that many churches expect their pastor to give them the "answers" to life, but then become offended if your answers aren't the same as the ones they've already developed. Or that many churches blame the pastor for any and all decisions they don't like, but then become frustrated if they aren't involved in the decision-making process, not realizing that the decisions they don't like were probably also influenced by lay collaboration. It's a lonely vocation, being a pastor. Good seminary professors may talk about the inherent struggles of pastoral life but no seminary can possibly teach you to handle it. You have to experience a person leaving the church for reasons completely out of your control, or a person leaving because they've misunderstood you, or a person leaving because you did what you're certain God wanted you to do, to learn what it's like. It's one thing I learned on my bike trip across the country that as helped me immensely: you can't train yourself into shape for the tasks God has put before you. You have to ride yourself into shape. You have to do it to be able to do it. You have to trust God knew what He was doing when He called you and spend every moment relying upon God's grace. You can never learn how to be a pastor.</p><p>You can't learn what to do when you find yourself working late at night in a haunted church building. True story. My first appointment had an old building re-built on the same spot the previous church building had burned down a hundred years before. At night, you could hear the cries of the previous building: "Don't forget me! Don't forget me!" Either that, or there was a man living in the attic. Actually, there was a man living in the attic. He waited for everyone to leave before he himself could safely leave the building. So maybe all the creepy sounds were of his devising, hoping to force people to leave earlier than planned. You also can't learn what to do when a community member asks you to help her arrange her home, and you agree to help because she clearly has a mental illness and you're worried no one else will help, but then you find that her home is a trailer that hasn't been properly maintained for at least twenty years and instead simply used as storage for that time period. You can't learn what to do when your father-in-law becomes a loved and respected member of the church family and then he suddenly passes away, and you're now expected to personally grieve and also offer care to your congregants. You can't learn what to do when the parsonage the church provides for you is on a major thoroughfare, blessing the house with constant background noise and shaking except for a handful of hours at night. You can't learn what to do when your church doesn't care what it means to be a (fill in the blank with whatever form of Christian disciple you are, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.) because they want to create the church in their own image. You can't learn what to do when the police take over your church building for a stakeout--true story! You can't learn what to do when people just plain don't listen, are ready to take offense at every little thing you say, and can't abide any person or group believing or practicing faith differently and mask their self-centeredness as a concern with other people's "faithfulness," as if faithfulness to God's Word can't take a variety of forms through the Spirit (by the way, the Covid-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this. Many churches are finding it impossible to strike a balance between caring for their congregants' physical safety and comfort levels with a theological and emotional need to remain open no matter what). </p><p>Look, you can't be taught how to be a pastor in seminary. You can, however, be taught the habits and rituals of a humble pastor, seeking God's grace in all things, in one's personal and pastoral life. Crucially, you can be taught how to form the relationships that will sustain you throughout your fulfilling of your vocation. Here is one fallacy many lay churchgoers need to be freed from: the pastor can be your friend. No matter how close the relationships may be between pastor and congregant, they can never be truly a friendship. Pray for your pastor, offer them support, but most of all encourage them to maintain the solid friendships they already have or should have. A pastor won't survive without friends because the responsibility to grow a church spiritually, but no one's agreeing how that should be done, can be overwhelming.</p><p>The good news is that you or your pastor will almost certainly find lasting and meaningful spiritual friendships at seminary. I'd like to share four different versions of friendship I experienced to either give hope to prospective seminarians, assure laity that their pastors are okay, remind current pastors of what's important, and perhaps also offer some thought-provoking reflections on the forms all our friendships take and how to best utilize them in our life moving forward. Pastoral life presents its own particular challenges, but life itself can be a challenge. The trick is benefitting from the people God has placed on our path to appreciate and enjoy the gift of life.</p><p>My grizzly bear roommate, Joel, was a year ahead of me in seminary and so, by being his roommate, I had a built-in set of friends. One of them, Jo, later traveled to South Africa with me--or I with her would be more grammatically correct, as she was definitely more mature than I. It was a blessing to have these friends in particular because they fit with my own personality quite well: funny, loved sports (some of them), and most importantly were committed to holy fun and intellectual and spiritual growth. </p><p>At one lunch time, when chicken nuggets were being served, one of those friends declared that a chicken nugget lunch meant an eating contest. I gleefully joined, to the mock delight of many, given my skinny frame. I then handily won. A year later, another friend, even skinnier than I, challenged others to a Chipotle burrito eating contest. We made it into a "thing," walking down to Chipotle, walking back, and then gathering in the community room for the main event. Probably H wouldn't want me to tell this story because she recently got married (congratulations!) and might still be in that, "Should I tell him <i>all</i> my life stories?" phase, but it so went that H, the skinniest one, ate both burritos first. Unfortunately for her, I won the contest, because I was the only other one to have eaten two burritos in one sitting and she, shortly after finishing number two, mysteriously left the room and never returned. You can guess what happened. </p><p>Yes, there were shenanigans, but we also joined together night after night during Advent to read from <i>The Christmas Chronicles</i> and mark the holy season together. And we challenged one another on a range of theological and vocational questions. J and J were particularly insightful regarding economic justice issues, H on the nature of spiritual growth, and Joel on the reality of living life. When I decided I would not become a pastor, none of them blindly accepted my decision but instead, while still supporting me, asked me why and wanted to ensure that I'd still use my spiritual gifts somehow and some way. These conversations were not the purpose of our time together but did flesh out the meaningfulness of our friendship. Together, we could clearly see that God has created us to share in life with Him, which means joyful and peaceful attention on God's self. Our friendship helped us master the joyful and peaceful part, while always remaining attentive to God. You need to laugh in life, especially if you are serving in a vocation filled with responsibility.</p><p>On what we might call the opposite end of the spectrum, I also participated in a band meeting during seminary. Originally the Methodist movement, in addition to a theological focus on grace and spiritual perfection through the Holy Spirit, emphasized what were called class meetings and band meetings. Class meetings met to ask one another how one's discipleship journey was going; band meetings met to confess sins to one another and then forgive them. While our school required that each student attend a class meeting during an introductory class, mine didn't last, probably because it was merely a class requirement. Whatever the reason, with the dissolution of my forced class meeting and my growing disillusionment with the qualifications and spirituality of my prospective clergy colleagues, I sought something more meaningful. A lot of my disillusionment could probably be traced to the fact that I was a theological conservative surrounded by progressives. All my friends at that time either leaned or were outright progressive, as were all the professors. Plus, I seemed to daily fall off the pedestal of holiness and purity. I needed some group of people I could unload my entire self to without fear of being judged. The band meeting was just what I needed.</p><p>What made my band meeting meaningful was that it was only men--all band meetings should consist of one sex--and that we all felt out of place at that school. Now, I shouldn't call it "my" band meeting because I was invited to an already ongoing band, but it became mine. Publicly confessing one's sins to others is not great fun but even so I looked forward to that hour or two every week. It was like a secret enclave where God spoke to us directly from Mt. Sinai, offering grace and mercy in increased measure. My group of friends were open and accepting, of course, but there are times in life when we need more than friendly support, advice, and prayer. We need an outward and tangible sign of God's grace. An outward and tangible sign of God's saying to us, "I know the deepest, darkest parts of your being, and yet I gave my Son to die on the cross for you." </p><p>The relationship I developed with my band members was special. To this day those three have heard things about my life that no one else knows, not even my wife. Yet you might not need a band meeting to develop those types of relationships. It is hard, though, to maintain friendships that are completely and entirely open to everyone's failings and struggles all the time, which is why I often recommend therapy and counseling to anyone, regardless of one's mental health. Some friendships are able to strike the balance, though. Either way, as I continue in pastoral ministry, the need for these deeply spiritual relationships has become clearly a necessity to me. The pressures of life, of sin, and of competing interests within the church that then blame issues on the pastor or church for not being God-focused, can all become too much. This is true for non-clergy, as well, who might have an equally demanding vocation. You will feel like a failure. You will feel lonely. You will feel out of place. You will feel that you should give up, that God is not with you, that you can't redeem yourself from past mistakes. Having friends that support you and make you laugh will often not be enough. Again, even with our best friends, we often still hide part of our being to protect ourselves from complete exposure. Yet we need at least one relationship in which we can bear ourselves and become entirely vulnerable so as to know God's mercy in times of trial and tribulation, whether they be spiritual or practical. These relationships will nurture contentment. Different from joy and peace and intellectual growth, we sometimes just need to be content in God.</p><p>Dating in seminary can be fun, as I've shared before in other pieces. What I haven't said is that I believe every romantic relationship should serve a purpose. We don't necessarily need to know what that purpose is in the midst of the relationship but we should internally inquire every so often to discern. Why? Because we also need relationships that contribute to emotional and reflective growth. Sometimes, even in a church, people will seek to intentionally hurt you, either because they are simply mad or they think that doing so will return you to a more "right" path. And as a clergy friend of mine says, "church hurt is the worst hurt." Or people around you are not self-aware or considerate enough to acknowledge when they are unintentionally hurting you. All I know is that you will be hurt, whether in the church or not, by the people you least expect to hurt you. In those situations we need not only a closeness to God, not only relationships of joy and peace and spiritual growth and contentment, we need to be able to reflect on our own selves well. We need to know when there's a good reason we've been hurt, when we've been caught in a crossfire, and when our hurt has everything to do with someone else's unresolved issues. Romantic relationships aren't the only way we do that but they are often the best, as they encourage us to constantly question what we've done and why.</p><p>I've mentioned my friend Alex before and how I was attracted to her before becoming friends. I remember going late to some special, evening chapel event. Because I was late, I had to sit up in the foyer--foyer? That's not the right word, I don't think. Whatever the upper rows of seats/pews in the back of a sanctuary are called. Up there. Standing a few feet from me, managing the lighting and sound, was this gorgeous older woman, looking a little sad, who needed me to cheer her up. Little did I know how much reason she had to be sad. A few days later, a friend of mine told me that he knew this mystery woman, so I asked if he could investigate her romantic history, as if we were in middle school. He commented on the fact that we weren't in middle school but I didn't care. I wanted to know, I wanted to tread carefully. </p><p>From that point forward, I realized that I'd need to grow up if I wanted to nab a mature woman. I couldn't win her over with middle school tactics and an early twenties' physique. Who knew? Alex expertly redirected my interests towards friendship, for some unknown reason, but I didn't give up until I graduated and moved away. In the meantime, I re-evaluated everything about myself that might have turned Alex off. Wearing visors upside down and backwards was the first casualty. Saying, "Whale's balls," as a substitute for cursing, was also a casualty. Funnily enough, Alex and I actually had a conversation about the size of testicles I could reference that wouldn't be overly obnoxious to her. If I were going to use male parts instead of curse words, in an attempt to be a funny and flashy young thing, I had to stick to only, "balls," once or twice a day. She was clear on that. I also learned from her that babies grow in a woman's ovary, not in their stomach. Apparently the ovary expands inside the woman's body. Who knew? Perhaps the greatest maturation consisted of examining my desires. Did I want to win over Alex because we'd live happily ever after, or because I wanted victory in a challenging conquest? </p><p>Over time, whether she knew she was doing this or not, Alex guided me to understand myself and what's important in my life. Not life generally, but my life. We are each, of course, unique individuals, and what might be good for someone else might not be for us. If we want to be happy, content, whatever, we need to intensely self-examine. No one else can do it for us. However, we can often see ourselves reflected most clearly in the quest for gratification. If the quest only remains a quest, then we've failed ourselves. If, on the other hand, we question why we are who we are, why we're seeking what we do, then we might grow up a little bit. We might develop the emotional and reflective health and maturity that we need to survive years of life, full of crises. </p><p>The title of this essay is "Grace," as you can read. I assume you can read, anyway, otherwise I should stop writing. Sometimes I wonder if God's grace is best explained by putting the right people in our paths to develop the relationships we need to grow well into mature, holy people. I did not choose my roommate, and because I did not choose my roommate, I didn't exactly choose my friends. Yet they were right for me. I also didn't sit around asking myself, "How can I find an older, attractive woman to fall in love with that will then help me mature emotionally?" That happened by accident, or by grace, by providence. At times, though, we do willfully choose the relationships we want. That can end badly. Once, in college, I thought to myself, "Man, I should find a good, intelligent, Christian woman, and base my love for her entirely on respect. I don't need to be attracted to her at all." Before I realized how miserable I'd be in that marriage, I had already bought a $3000 engagement ring. When we have planted and watered the relationships that we need to grow, though, we can then know the persons and character we're looking for to establish a single relationship that might encompass all the other means of edification from the other forms. Hence, why I became friends with Rob and Maggie.</p><p>During one of those awkward icebreaking conversations at the beginning of New Testament class, Rob admitted that he was an aspiring writer. Hey, so was I! I caught him after class and said we should start a writers' accountability group. Just the two of us. He agreed. That lasted a month, maybe, before Rob's life caught up to him--a husband and father of two and still working part-time as a youth pastor--and I realized I'd never amount to much. </p><p>So when we dissolved our meetings, he invited me to his apartment for family shabbat. I accepted the invitation because I was learning how to chase after what I believed God told me was good for me. Years later I learned that Rob did not expect me to accept the invitation, wasn't even sure he had wanted to make the invitation, and so didn't tell his wife that I may or may not be coming. My arrival was a surprise to everyone but me. Looking back on it, the whole experience was awkward, but at the time I assumed it was because I was unfamiliar with the family traditions. Rob had not learned from his first mistake and, at the end of the evening, extended hospitality again and said I could feel free to join them any Friday in the future. So the next week I showed up again and we reran the whole charade. Except that night, Rob and Maggie and the kids decided they did, indeed, enjoy my company.</p><p>Friday after Friday for two and a half years, I was part of a family. The Ulmers weren't friends. They were brother and sister. Christians use family language a lot but not often, I think, do the words, "brother" and "sister" actually apply. Usually we say, "Hey, brother," aspiring that it will be true, but with the Ulmers it was true. Every week, I stayed later and later. To that point in my life I had only stayed up beyond midnight, on purpose, a few times. But for the last year of seminary, I knew that I shouldn't plan to do anything Saturday morning. We talked, laughed, taught the kids, prayed, worshiped, argued, explored new ideas, held one another accountable, and fast forwarded our maturing process. Maggie once said to me that I was the first male friend she was entirely comfortable being alone with for an extended period of time. My response was, "huh, yeah, you're right." I hadn't thought about it but never did we have to question the status of our relationship: we were family. </p><p>We were family, so I had learn how to deal with a pregnant woman. Pregnancy and infancy were periods of life I had astutely avoided until then. Once, in worship class, the professor asked us all to practice how we'd baptize an infant so that the water wouldn't drop down into the baby's eyes. For me, there was a step prior to that I had to practice: holding a baby. Everyone glanced at one another as if to ask themselves whether I was joking. But with little Ulmer, I was thrown into the deep end, and I didn't seem to care. I learned all sorts of things about infant care, including sleep regressions, when the child wakes up after half an hour and looks around to see if there's anyone to annoy. Hiding became an essential skill I learned in my final year of seminary. I also learned how to change a diaper, which side is the front and which is the back; which direction to swipe the poop. Half an hour after changing my first poopy diaper, we could still smell it. Rob asked me if I "dug in there" or not. Little did I know that one must "dig in there" to counteract after-taste. All these things I had to learn because we were family. Somehow or another I even became "uncle" to the Ulmer kids, and they wrote out kind little notes in their graduation gift to me, <i>The Giving Tree. </i></p><p>Family should be unconditionally loving and supportive but not all are. I mean, not all biological families are. Many families have their limits. Many friendships have their limits. Friendships that transition into chosen family, however, are likely to offer all the elements of God's grace I'm suggesting are necessary for life's challenges, and they're able to do so because chosen families are indeed unconditionally loving and supportive, like God Himself. This isn't to say that biological families that don't live up to the ideal or friendships that fall short are somehow bad. My friends in seminary who fit the various molds were and are great. But this last friendship, my chosen family, was the ultimate. I acknowledge how lucky I was and am because not all of us are fortunate enough to ever find a chosen family. Not all of us are fortunate enough to find people who will remain loving and supportive friends to us no matter what we say or do. That's what the Ulmers were to me. If ever I angered them, they would not stew but instead share their feelings and hold me accountable by asking why I did or said what I did with the intention of reconciliation and also my own spiritual and mental growth. We did not need to walk on egg shells because every moment was an opportunity for some sort of life or spiritual improvement. </p><p>I was never embarrassed around them, either. One time, Rob and I were arguing, and I said, "Well, surely, if you believe x, you must also believe y," and Rob responded with the conclusion, "and don't call me Shirley." I didn't get it, having never seen the movie <i>Airplane</i>. I was in a "surely" mood so I said the word again and again, and Rob responded the same way each time, and I could see a growing smirk on him as he tried to keep a straight face but he wasn't sure whether I was pushing his buttons on purpose as a comedic routine or if I actually wasn't cultured in comedy film. Later that evening I returned home and researched, "Don't call me Shirley," to see if Rob was referencing anything--obviously--and felt stupid for only a moment. With anyone else, that feeling would have lasted. Indeed, with anyone else, I probably would have followed up after a few days, "Hey, you know that time I seemed not to know the movie <i>Airplane</i>? I was so much better than you at delivering dry humor." </p><p>The point is this: if you plan on surviving life, seek out the relationships that can support you in God's grace via intellectual growth, joyful refreshment and peaceful relaxation, forgiveness and mercy, and emotional and spiritual growth. And if you're lucky, you'll find a relationship, or a chosen family, managing to encapsulate all of God's grace. Hold on to it. </p><p>It is true, too, that a chosen family can serve for you as a means of all of God's grace. The religious acts that we call sacraments are such because we believe that somehow, mysteriously but surely (don't call me Shirley), Christ is present in that action regardless of our state of mind or heart. A chosen family can be that for you all of the time. Just as it is only through Christ we come to know our true worth, so in human terms it is only through these special relationships that we can be truly assured that we are indeed of worth and value.</p><p>Still, at the end of the day, perhaps the most important lesson isn't about the types of relationships you need to survive the challenges of life, but that you need relationships. Unless you make a covenant, as in marriage, relationships will come and go and that's okay. No matter how introverted you are, though, please don't ever forget the importance of your relationships, especially if you're going to be a pastor or want to support your pastor. Pastoral ministry is, again, lonely. </p><p>So do whatever you need to do to nurture and maintain the relationships you need. Even if that means taking a train trip across the country to revisit with old friends and chosen family. And even if one of those stops is in Newport News, Virginia, one of the least safe places to be late at night in Virginia, and your best friend has no idea where the train station is and he's driving an old rickety van on its last legs. Even then, take the trip, because eventually it will be a pretty hilarious story you can all laugh about after the van breaks down and you need to sit around waiting for the wife to put all the kids to sleep so she can pick y'all up. </p><p>These relationships are going to help you be the person God intended you to be. If you're a pastor, that means being a non-anxious presence at your first funeral in a new appointment hearing and then seeing that an elderly member of the family fainted and is possibly having a heart attack mere minutes before the start of the funeral. It means having half your church judge you for something you did not say but they think you did say because of mishearing or miscommunication but calmly loving them all anyway. It means looking someone in the face as they ask, "Why do we need to talk about racism? We don't have any coloreds in our church," and patiently listening to God's guidance. Being a pastor means all sorts of things they don't teach you in seminary, but you can survive and thrive through it all because you have God's grace in the form of tangible, living people behind you, supporting you, watering your growth.</p><p>And if you're not a pastor or a concerned congregant reading this, I believe most of what I've said here applies to you, too. If you are a concerned congregant, though, some advice: don't try to be the friend your pastor needs. 99% of the time your pastor can't stop being your pastor around you. Just check in to ensure they have the network they need... and then do your best not to make them need it.</p>John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-27573212594761689282021-04-13T08:12:00.004-07:002021-04-13T08:16:14.263-07:00Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up: Unintentional Community<p>Although seminary seems like the place a student should be concerned with growing in holiness, it's often the time and place to grow in other, less holy ways. Though most of us had lived away from home before, the competitive field at seminary is significantly smaller. Nearly from day one I knew that, intellectually, I excelled most of my classmates. That may sound like arrogance, and it may be, but grades and accomplishments would later prove the case. I knew, too, that I was far and away one of the better looking single men at the seminary. With those two things combined, I was confident that I could impress and perhaps land a girlfriend. I've written before about my unhealthy obsession with dating while at seminary that led me down some dark corners. If I could pinpoint a reason, it was because I had no interest in college--working hard to be holy in an unholy environment--and also no luck surrounded by many more and many handsomer men, and so seminary finally gave me a chance to see what I may have been missing. Constantly I did battle with desires I convinced myself were harmless with the person I thought I was and wanted to be.</p><p>Perhaps no better example exists than the night I found myself alone in a room late at night with a girl, E. We were studying...</p><p>Because of the serious lack of actual studying, and the time of night, the obvious question was whether I was supposed to make a move. She had invited me to her room. E had a roommate but, it appeared, had knowingly invited me to her room when her roommate would be out. The two of us had developed a rapport and it seemed like now she hoped to take things to the next level. Aside from the fact that I had no experience popping the question, "Hey, should we make out?" or smoothly inching in for the kiss, I questioned all night whether I should bother trying. What if E just wanted to be friends? What if I just wanted to be friends? What if I wanted to be the type of person who had good, close friends of either sex and no one had to worry about my being a creep? What if that's why E invited me over at night, because she knew I wouldn't make a move? To make matters worse, near the end of our time together, E sold me hard on joining the new intentional community that the seminary was soon opening in downtown D.C. Was she inviting me so that we could live together? Or because she hoped I, too, shared a commitment to deeply biblical and holy principles of living?</p><p>The night with E ended without a kiss and without a proposal. Not long after, I started dating someone else. Interestingly, E seemed to get jealous when I told her and said, at the last, that she hoped at least we wouldn't spend less time together. I genuinely hoped we could continue playing ping pong, riding our bikes, and studying late at night, too, although my promise to stay close friends was quickly forgotten. </p><p>Honestly, one of my major regrets in life, not merely from my time in seminary, is that I didn't work on my friendship with E and chose instead to date. Over time, it became clear she really loved our friendship and wasn't expecting anything else from me. Together, we pushed and challenged one another intellectually, spiritually, and practically in enjoyable ways. That's what a good friendship is and does: co-builders and practitioners of virtue and discipleship, and accountability in the process. </p><p>We were unlikely friends, E and I. She was from the deep South, I from the suburbs of Boston and Worcester. She held progressive theological positions, I conservative ones. Later I'd learn how serious that latter divide was when she married a woman. Yet she saw in me, and I in her, a spirit committed to digging deeper and going further in faithfulness. Our friendship was the first of many opportunities to capitalize on unintentional community that I let slip away or never appreciated as I should have, and thus never learned or grew from as I should have. Obviously, I never joined the intentional community living area.</p><p>There were other opportunities to experience meaningful relationships, even if not deep or lasting ones. There always are when we live life. I think of some of the strongest friendships I know in literature. Or, at least, the ones I most prefer reading or watching. Sam and Frodo come first to mind, and then Crowley and Aziraphale from <i>Good Omens</i>. If you are familiar with LOTR, you'll remember that Sam tags along with Frodo by accident as much as anything else. He was a gardener who happened to be overhearing the conversation Frodo had with Gandalf about the ring of power and, voile, became part of the Fellowship. In <i>Good Omens</i>, Crowley is a demon, Aziraphale an angel. The friendship is funny and complicated but, to the two of them, eventually more important than any Grand Plan.</p><p>So often the most meaningful relationships or experiences in life are the ones we didn't expect or didn't seek out. When people suggest that high school, college, or young adulthood generally is the time to "experience" life, I don't disagree, although what I mean, I think, is slightly different. We shouldn't bother doing drugs or having sex. We should instead keep an eye out for the unintentional communities, friendships, and causes that might become a lasting part of our life. Seminary, and all other similar times and places in our life, is a time and place to keep an eye out for what we don't expect. My friendship with E could have been, should have been, one of those unexpectedly meaningful delights.</p><p>Other unexpected and unintentional communities could have been found all over the place. I'm going to talk about friendships in the next essay and instead focus here on the unintended and unexpected nature of life's most pleasant offerings. </p><p>Take, for example, the annual phone-a-thon. Few people on earth, I assume, actually look forward to a phone-a-thon. Even fewer, I imagine, do so at a seminary, where, if statistics about clergy are also true in the halls of education, most of the students are introverts. From a small population of students came an even smaller number willing to talk on the phone with complete strangers for the purpose of asking for money. The only reason I participated was because my roommate more or less guilted me into it.</p><p>Yet in the school's conference room that week, something magical happened. Quite a few things, actually. First, I came into contact with staff members of the school I'd otherwise never have known and came to see them as persons rather than merely as officials. That alone gives a worthwhile perspective on the operation of a school or government or any other structured hierarchy as we don't need to, and shouldn't, think of inconveniences or disagreements as "them" versus "us." More importantly, I discovered a strange part of myself I hadn't realized existed: the "speaks will with older ladies" part of me. It's true. For whatever reason, I had a relatively high success rate with older women. I should note that women were more likely to give back to their alma mater anyway, but even above and beyond that I was like Ken Griffey, Jr. in his prime with the older women on the call list. High average, oftentimes hitting it out of the park. Soon, the director of alumni relations, or whatever the title of the phone-a-thon manager, was handing me a specially chosen list of prospective donors. </p><p>Why was I successful with older women? I don't know, because I stopped helping out with the phone-a-thon after only a couple of sessions. Over the course of my three years at seminary, I only made calls to support the school for a total of four hours. Abandoning ship not only hurt the school but also cost me an opportunity to learn more about myself and how and why I interact with people the way that I do.</p><p>Or what about World Cup 2012? Our school had and has a large percentage of South Korean students who, we learned, are passionate about their football/soccer. Now, before I go any further, I should share with you that I had established a practice of watching my hometown teams alone. Every New England Patriots game I watched alone, in my bed. Every Bruins Stanley Cup playoff game I watched alone, in my bed. Normally I'd also anxiously rock back and forth. That my team won was the most important part of the sporting event and, somehow, my nervous watching contributed to my team's winning (indeed, for a few years, the Patriots never once lost while I watched alone). </p><p>Compared to me, our South Koreans wouldn't think of watching anything important alone. Many of them lived in their own family apartments on campus. Not all of them had a TV set but enough of them did to make the number crammed into our common room in the dormitory surprising. Why watch with others when you can watch by yourself? Further, you could hear the screams, groans, cries, cheers, and laughter emanating from the common room wherever you were in the dormitory whenever the South Korean team played. Soccer fans will know that the South Korean national teams have never been particularly strong. That apparently didn't matter to anyone. There they were, having a blast, not because the team they cheered for was winning but because they were watching with beloved friends and compatriots. I am ashamed that I never joined them to watch with my fellow South Korean students but did sit in silence while watching the Americans nearly disastrously fail to live up to expectations and then nearly faint after Landon Donovan scored a last-second, dignity-tying goal because I held in all my anxiety. Likewise, I remember being frustrated with my dorm companions for watching a movie part-way through one of the American men's Olympic ice hockey games. I mean, it was Olympic ice hockey, didn't they know? </p><p>Missed opportunity after missed opportunity to develop meaningful and beneficial relationships. I thought I was at seminary to learn, get good grades, and prove to my Board of Ordained Ministry that I was a potentially great pastor. Because of that, I didn't seek out anything else that could have helped me grow. As a pastor now looking back, I can see that the relationships I ignored could have been the most fruitful part of my time. </p><p>Another good example of a missed opportunity was going to see <i>Legend of the Guardians: Owls of Ga'Hoole </i>with my roommate's fiancee. To this day it remains the only time I went to see a movie with a girl I was not romantically interested in. Of course, it felt weird, and only partly because we were the oldest attendees who were there by choice. Some of what makes a good pastor, as well as a good person, is the ability to set and protect healthy boundaries. Learning how to have a deep relationship with a woman whose pants I was not trying to get into could have been good for me. Probably good for every man, and vice versa for women. Yet I never again asked my roommate's fiancee to do something just the two of us. </p><p>You may be an introvert. I certainly am. Reading my encouraging you to build relationships, especially those you don't seek out, may make you feel exhausted. Thinking of spending more time with people exhausts me, that's for sure. Again, though, there are countless unintentional communities, acquaintances, and friendships that we can make and develop that can further our own growth. Whether we're learning how to passionately cheer for a team even if they're terrible or how to set healthy boundaries for ourselves, with our time, emotions, or otherwise, or learning what makes others tick as well as why we are who we are, the relationships you don't go looking for are probably the ones you'll be most thankful for later. </p><p>Essentially, reflecting on my time at seminary, I think of <i>The Art of Neighboring</i>. Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon ask a simple question in that book: what if, when Jesus told us to love our neighbors, he meant our actual neighbors? So often we think of "our neighbors" as the strangers "out there somewhere." The story of the Good Samaritan is partly to blame insofar as Jesus encourages us to consider everyone our neighbor. Also to blame is the ease and convenience with which we love people we can't see. If we do that, we can just throw money at loving strangers by helping various organizations. You know as well as I do, though, that our actual neighbors have become as much strangers to us as anyone else. We know their faces, we may even know their names. Do we actually know our neighbors? Do we love them? Often not. We usually don't know or love our neighbors because, a) we didn't choose them, and b) we think of our homes as private refuges. Building relationships with those we didn't choose rather than constructing private refuges is exactly what can help us fulfill Jesus's command to love our neighbors as well as learn more about ourselves and grow in any number of ways. </p><p>Besides, what you learn at seminary in classrooms will constitute about 20%, at most, of your life as a pastor. </p><p>If you go to seminary, then, study hard, but don't ignore what's most important: relationships. If you don't go to seminary and plan on being a lay person all your life, the same advice holds true. Studying and working hard at school or your job may bring you tangible success but none of it will help you understand yourself or grow. Place your emotional and spiritual emphasis in life on relationships, particularly the ones you don't choose or go looking for. Spend time with the people you would never choose to spend time with. Listen to them, help them, support them, pray for them, learn from them. They'll teach you a lot. </p><p>Kind of sounds like a church. As long as you commit to listening and living together as a church, not as a faction. The ideal of a church is a community that unintentionally finds themselves living together and sticking together, no matter what, learning and growing all the time no matter the challenge.</p>John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-45901816352983159952021-02-21T16:49:00.006-08:002021-02-21T16:53:56.707-08:00Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up: The Presidency<p>Even though Wesley Theological Seminary is a rather small school it still boasts a student council. Students need to feel worthy in some way, you know. When I first arrived at Wesley, my plan was to study hard, keep my head down, and finish my degree as quickly as possible so that I could get on with the work of being the greatest pastor known to God or man. Near the end of my second semester, though, I was informed that I somehow would be a replacement council representative for my class year. From that point forward, I had ambition.</p><p>My ambition probably stemmed from admiration for the president at that time. Mr. Thomas was not only cool and funny, fast becoming a friend, but he also worked for the seminary and had fascinating stories about playing for football for Furman University. If that school lightly rings a bell for you, it's because they occasionally upset a Division I-A team. Plus, he played guitar, and so could clearly get any girl he wanted--but he was engaged to be married, surely making him more desirable. I was in awe. He was graduating at the end of that year and and, obviously, I'd be the next president.</p><p>Mr. Thomas actually convinced me not to run for president. Though he put an end to my hopes and dreams, even his arguments were amazing. I had only been on the council for a month and a half. How in the world would I know what a good president would do? Some day, he said, I'd make a great president, but I should settle for treasurer in my second year. That plan worked for me, not least because Mr. Thomas recommended it, but also because the treasurer at the time was and is the son of a bishop in the UMC. Putting myself next to Bishop's Son in the record books seemed like a good move for my prospects in future evaluations of greatness. </p><p>Serving as treasurer was actually enjoyable. In retrospect, I made the job harder for the treasurer after me because there was one account controlled by the student council that I never understood. At the time, however, it seemed obvious that my administrative services to the school and council were incomparable. We had about fifteen forms that we used for students to ask for reimbursement or budget adjustments and it seemed certain that only a handful were necessary. For the first time in memory--which, admittedly, only went back three years, as the majority of seminary students graduate in three years--I activated the finance team and we reviewed the forms, updated them, and eliminated a bunch of red tape. My star was rising. The presidency was a formality at that point. The only remaining question is where I'd be ranked against other council presidents.</p><p>Before I finish telling my epic, I should let you know that there were two reasons why I chose Wesley Theological Seminary. First, I wanted to attend Boston University's School of Theology but it was the only Methodist seminary that, at the time, required the GREs. Why would I bother with another test in my senior year of college if I didn't need to? Second, Wesley responded to me with a scholarship offer before I finished my application to Duke Divinity School. Third, it's a liberal, progressive school. When applying, I was theologically conservative and wanted to challenge myself with new and better ways to convince those liberals why they are tragically misguided. </p><p>Without question, studying at a school in which you are in the minority brings significant challenges, particularly existential and spiritual challenges. I can't imagine what racial minorities have and do experience. </p><p>Perhaps the most frustrating challenge represented itself in the person of Joe. Joe is Asian-American and wrote a number of articles for the school's journal arguing that the school needed to work harder at diversifying the curriculum. We didn't need to learn the theologies and histories of the same old white, European dudes, Joe argued; we needed to learn the theologies, histories, and biblical interpretations of those thinkers that numerically represented the student body and the congregations and communities we would later serve. In other words, Joe wanted to disregard the canon of accepted Christian thinkers. Seeing as I planned on being the greatest pastor known to God and man, Joe's ideas seemed toxic. I needed to learn what the best and brightest thought and believed. And obviously the canon of seminary curricula would, over time, lift the cream to the top. It was my godly duty to write counterargument articles against Joe. </p><p>Thanks to Joe's shy but determined courage, the argument never ended. I didn't seem to be winning. My only recourse was to speak to him in person and destroy his opinions that way. Our first conversation, planned to be a ten-minute smackdown, lengthened into the entirety of the lunch hour. From there, we became friends. By the end of our seminary careers I'd be talking about how Joe and I should live together in a beautiful glass house with his husky dog. What began as an attempt to broaden my horizons at a liberal school led to actual appreciation of liberal and progressive thought and belief (and would later result in my shifting on the spectrum). Not what I had planned.</p><p>Inevitably, I did coast to student council presidency. I won in an actual landslide. Votes did not need to be recounted. History awaited.</p><p>My first order of business was to call my cabinet together before the end of the prior semester. We'd start our work in the fall but we all met and discussed our plans on graduation day in the spring before. No president had ever done that before, as far as we knew. When we were officially installed as council leaders, I read our constitution. I imagined that no president had done that before, either, because it mentioned that the student council president was supposed to regularly meet with the seminary president and attend seminary board meetings, and also that council leaders were supposed to hold regular office hours. When I checked out the room designated as the student council office, it was clear that it had been years since anyone had used it for a purpose other than storage. Being outgoing has never been among my strong suits but I was determined that by meeting with the school president, the board, and cleaning out our office and holding office hours, I'd be able to secure a larger budget for the council as well as more respect. Our demands would be met! Better food in the refectory! Better pay for the refectory workers! What else did we want? I'm not sure, but surely we had demands.</p><p>At the annual open house day in the early fall of my presidency, some students from other schools in the D.C. seminary consortium attended and informed us that we had an open invitation to consortium events. Assuming that if I had never heard of these events, no one else had, either, I made it a point to reintroduce Wesley students to those events. I'd attract a crowd by plying my stand-up comedy trade. That went well a couple of times but, as Jesus says, a prophet will never be accepted in his or her hometown, so the only colleague who ever joined me at those events was a girl who was interested in me, and vice versa. </p><p>It was after the second consortium event that I realized something was going terribly wrong with my presidency. The average Wesley attendance at those events was two. No one else seemed interested. The person I had tapped to be council parliamentarian rarely showed up, didn't seem to know what was going on, and generally was disliked. My VP had to resign. Office hours were a dismal failure, even when we moved them to the library, a more public place. The treasurer, the only other cabinet member who bought into my vision, approached me about that account I never understood. My misunderstanding led to obvious mismanagement that he then had to fix. The seminary president like me, and I him, but our conversations went nowhere. Despite all my attempts at creating a legacy, I did nothing but continue the trend, the status quo. I vividly remember our second-to-last council meeting in my presidential term: the budget setting meeting. There were no issues to debate. The budget the treasurer and I had put together was apparently perfect. I say, "apparently," not to pet my ego but as a sad commentary on my hope to encourage more passion and involvement in the council. That no one had anything to say seemed, to me, like a final kick in the pants.</p><p>From every possible perspective, I was a mediocre student council president. Maybe I had good ideas but I couldn't implement them. To this day I have nightmares about becoming an ex-oficio president of the council, the first ever former student to be awarded the honor, and then being unable to make the meetings, unable to gather a quorum, and having to resign early. There is extra guilt heaped on because, a few years after graduation, I received a notice from the then council president alerting the seminary community to the lack of interest in running for council office as well as the ineffectiveness of the institution, so changes would be made. Perhaps I actually weakened the office of the president and the council.</p><p>If I were to more kindly reflect on my time in office, I'd conclude that, a) everyone else had grown to expect less of ourselves and the council, and therefore student democracy had become destined to fail, and b) I didn't need to carry the weight of being the greatest. After all, why be a pot stirrer when all is working well? Of course, not all was working well but there is some truth to these generous conclusions. A general feeling of smallness and uselessness had pervaded student democracy at the seminary. In many ways, it could serve as a microcosm for democracy in our country today. Merely saying so probably, hopefully, sets your mind running with similarities.</p><p>As far as I'm concerned, what most deserves page space concerning my presidential disaster is not political comparisons but rather awareness of how often God laughs at our plans and ambitions. I don't think God laughs in a mean way. I believe God laughs as a parent would responding to a child who has just declared they are going to fly to the moon on the back of a dragon: "I'd love to see you do that, child of mine... and while you're concentrating on that lovely albeit impossible dream, I'll gently prepare you for other great and meaningful adventures." </p><p>All three years I spent at seminary were saturated in dashing and crushing my plans, hopes, dreams, and visions. I became more comfortable with progressive theology, I switched my degree from an M.Div. to an M.T.S. because I became certain I wasn't called to be a pastor after all, I sought out the presidency and then failed, I took up riding a rode bike and then rode it across the country to fight human trafficking, and after and during a mental and spiritual crisis I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. </p><p>Speaking of things being crushed, by the way, I had a crush on an older woman who worked in the art center of the seminary. Alex wasn't old but I had always had a thing for older women, she was beautiful even without the older bias, and she seemed mysterious in a gothic kind of way. She checked all my boxes. I wanted to date her in the worst way. Unfortunately, I was terribly shy. I had to use the old, find-out-about-her-through-a-friend trick before working up the courage to ask her out. Then Alex said no, but she'd be happy to meet me for lunch somewhere. We began chatting and seeing each other in a non-romantic way quite often, and the more I learned about her the more I fell in love, or thought I did anyway. An artist, her parents had a lot of money so I could sit around writing the rest of my life while she painted, and she actually laughed at my jokes. One time, as I was sitting with my group of friends eating lunch, Alex actually came over and asked if she could sit with us. She always sat alone in the refectory so I felt honored and loved. That same lunchtime, I admitted to everyone that I thought babies grew in the mother's stomach. I didn't realize the uterus expanded. All my other friends were shocked and horrified but Alex calmly accepted my ignorance, told me it was okay, and then explained the truth to me. My heart was on fire. </p><p>Over time, however, it became clear to me that our budding friendship would never translate into romance. Yet when Alex asked me to host a major art event she and the arts center was putting together, I happily acted as MC. Afterward, when the night clearly went well and people loved the art and music as well as my event hosting, I looked to the back of the crowd and say Alex smiling. The next day she thanked me as she couldn't have imagined it would go as well as it did. I realized then that, a) I was far more pleased offering her my friendship in that way than I would have been if we dated, and she may have felt obligated to ask me to host; and b) I had suddenly an unexpectedly overcome my shyness and awkwardness. I'm still an introvert, I still incline toward shyness, but I embrace my awkwardness and quirkiness and I'm not afraid to ask people on a date (or for something else, since I'm married now and don't need to date).</p><p>The point is, seminary changes us. If you plan on going to seminary you should be prepared to be different than when you first apply and arrive. If you don't plan on attending seminary, you should know why seminary changes people: God is always foremost on one's mind. It is impossible to spend two or three years thinking about, writing about, struggling with, and praying to God and hardly anything else and not be transformed in some way. Not just transformed from glory into glory, though hopefully that happens, too, but you will absolutely exit with different priorities, practices, beliefs, behaviors, and perhaps even appearances. What we want isn't always going to happen. In fact, usually what we want won't happen. Things change. Things change because of God, the Living Creator and Sustainer of all that is, including you and me.</p><p>God's grace that changes us first affirms us. God affirms our worth as a child. Perhaps that is the only affirmation that we need, which is a good thing because God will rarely affirm the opinions and ambitions that we hatch on our own. Encounters with God will both increase our pride--as a child loved by God--and humble us, because we are so far from understanding God, so behind God's intentions for us and for others. God's power to change us is so great that He is the only one who has the power, right, and authority to change God's mind. Whether or not God has ever changed His mind, changed his character, I don't know, but He absolutely could. If God were to change His mind, it would surely be for the good and betterment of God's children as well as for God's self. God's changing us is for our good, too.</p><p>We thus should be open to the working of God's Spirit in our lives and in the lives of others. We can't possibly tell God what should or will happen. If we do, we won't succeed. Things change. God has other plans. God alone knows what is good and right. God alone knew that my current wife was and is a better fit for me than Alex, and God alone knows who is the best partner for each of us. Why do we try telling God who each person should marry? God alone knew that the presidency wasn't the right role for me and I really was called to be a pastor (it would take me an additional two years to confess God was right), and God alone knows what is the good and right and best role and ministry for each and every person. Why do we try telling God who He should ordain to pastoral ministry, or anything else?</p><p>Things change. God has other plans. Better plans. I am thankful. We should all be thankful. As a token of gratitude, we should allow God's Spirit to change us, to change others, to change generally, and do what only God's Spirit can do, what only God's Spirit would think to do. Praise God and the Holy Spirit!</p><p><br /></p><p>(Long-term readers of this blog might recognize that "Alex" is actually Alexandra N. Sherman, artist extraordinaire. She, too, is happily married, so I think we--really, she--made the right choice. More importantly, I invite you to check out her work at <a href="https://www.ansherman.com/">https://www.ansherman.com/</a>)</p>John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-1451144234150737892020-10-17T08:18:00.002-07:002020-10-17T08:18:18.787-07:00Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up: Let's Pretend<p>When I was in college, I was often the odd person out. Not realizing that Catholics are allowed to drink alcohol, I thought that going to a Catholic school for undergrad would mean less partying--I had always tied my faith to a straight-edge lifestyle. I remember one fellow student of mine confiding in me that she considered transferring because she, too, had expected her fellow classmates to be focused on Christ and study and therefore not on partying. I told her she could always talk to me because I also felt alone. Unfortunately, by the end of the year, she had become a party-goer herself, torn between her religious principles and the desire to fit in. I didn't much mind being alone, focused on learning and writing, during my college days. Going to seminary, though, I did look forward to sharing the same principles with most, if not all, my classmates.</p><p> Unfortunately, I was sorely mistaken about life at seminary. Truthfully, it is this fact, and this essay, that most motivated me to write this whole series and provide a behind-the-scenes look at a pastor's life at seminary. Prospective seminarians and those sitting in the pews need to know that the stereotype you may have life at seminary is probably false. The revelations of Jerry Falwell, Jr.'s life recently only make my speaking about seminary life and seminarians more relevant and important: Jerry Falwell, Jr. was and is not just one disappointing case. Whenever we expect rigid holiness of our leaders, far and beyond our own sense of righteousness, we will end disappointed.</p><p> Before I get to my main story, I want to clarify that it is only representative of the whole. Drinking alcohol is not in itself a sin nor is it, if it is a sin, the only sin imaginable. We know that. While at seminary I became a bit of a leader. One of my roles was welcoming (advertising) the school to prospective students. The best and the brightest who were considered for scholarships were offered a weekend tour of the school, with interviews being only a small interruption to the planned fun meant to convince those prospective seminarians that our school is the best. At one of these, I met and talked quite a bit to a young woman who happened to share the same name as the person I was dating at the time. When I learned that, I said, "Oh, it will be easy to remember your name." Well, that young woman decided to indeed attend our school and, on her first day, as I helped get her acclimated, I asked her name and she said, "That should be easy for you to remember." Well, I was no longer dating at the time, so I was completely baffled. Upon learning why, that new student barely talked to me... for the next two years. She had her reasons, I'm sure, but I can't help but think that one of those reasons was thinking that I was a jerk for dumping someone she liked. Maybe I was. In fact, I'm sure I was a jerk. But I'm not sure the silent treatment is what you would expect of seminarians. Indeed, there's a lot you don't know about seminary or seminarians--who later become pastors--so whether you're considering about going to seminary or wondering about the private life of your pastor, read on.<br /></p><p> My seminary colleagues threw themselves with abandon into celebrating International Night. The basic idea was that each room would represent a different country or culture with music, food, drink, and decoration. I imagine that the annual observance began as a means of deepening understanding within the student body. Our school served a number of Koreans, Africans, Pacific Islanders, and Europeans. Having a night dedicated to sharing and experiencing one another's culture sounds like a great idea. It sounds that way.</p><p>Much of the probable intentions and purpose of International Night fell apart due to one simple fact: most of the Koreans and Europeans at the school lived in the apartment building on campus. While the apartment building shared a parking lot with the dormitory, it often operated like an impassable barrier, including on International Night. So what ended up happening on International Night, it seemed to me, was that students played pretend, representing countries and cultures they had no actual connection to. The room across the hall from me, Mexico, was played by two very white guys. Now, those two very white guys were some of my favorite people at the seminary but it was no less silly. You can imagine, then, that International Night devolved quickly from a clever idea to deepen understanding into a thinly veiled opportunity to get drunk testing out all the available fluids.</p><p>The first year, my roommate, Joel (the werewolf), and I represented North Korea. Maybe that was a little insensitive but we thought it was funny. We didn't want to participate in the self-justifying party so we closed our borders and didn't make our beds. We thought about fasting that night, too, but fasting as a joke doesn't motivate well. </p><p>Anyway, while International Night wasn't the only time you might encounter a drunk seminarian, it did guarantee such encounters, not of one or a handful of classmates but of nearly everyone. What is wrong with drinking and getting drunk? Well, first of all, as I talked about in the "We Blew Stuff Up" essay, Methodists traditionally have been encouraged and taught not to drink. Historically, drinking often leads to feeling miserable and possibly ruining one's life. Plus, when we think of a holy person, we don't imagine someone who purposely drinks to the point of drunkenness. Doing so betrays a lack of self-control or a lack of trust in God to provide peace and joy. Besides, when I was working as editor of the school journal, I planned an article on International Night. I set up interviews with fellow seminarians to tell me all about their experience. One of my fellow seminarians angrily approached me when he found out, saying, "You can't write an article on this! It's a conflict of interest! You can't do this! You're morally corrupt!" He assumed--incorrectly--that the article would attack the faux festival. Even if his assumption were correct, however, his response proved how fearful he was of being found out, so to speak. Whether he or anyone else would admit it, the response displayed an inward sense of his/their own moral corruption, or at least of purposely falling short on holiness. For if I were to write an attack article, who would care if there was nothing wrong with such a party? </p><p>Herein we discover a crucial failing in the idea of seminary generally. Before I elucidate that failing, another brief Methodist history is in order. Back in the day, before seminaries, Methodist pastors (elders) took Jesus's words literally to go out two by two. Doing so allowed the younger, provisional pastors to receive instruction and guidance from older and more experienced pastors. We had what we still call Course of Study, but in contrast to today's version the Course was directed by the older pastor. This format enabled the elder pastor to become personally acquainted with the life, holiness, and spiritual calling of the provisional pastor; and for the provisional pastor to learn how to live a holy life consistent with the calling from God. I don't mean to suggest that we should expect any pastor to be entirely holy at all times for they are human like the rest of us. It does seem rather logical, though, that those planning on being or working as a pastor should strive to a certain form of holiness. What's wrong with our seminaries, then, is that we throw together a bunch of mostly young prospective pastors in training without any personal guiding hands. Making things worse, these seminarians then graduate from seminary and then move into their first appointment a month later. </p><p>No one is immune, of course. And, again, as I said, the drunkenness of International Night is only one symptom. All of us, on some level, go to seminary pretending to be what we are not. </p><p>A friend of mine started using Christian Mingle to find a wife. He was committed to having a partner when he entered pastoral ministry, perhaps knowing that the stresses of pastoral ministry are nearly impossible to deal with without strong support. As a side note, the girlfriends he met on Christian Mingle were all a bit crazy. One of them didn't even look real. His girlfriends became a running joke to everyone but him. My friend just didn't see what we saw. Eventually, his roommate, William, who seemed to get all the girls to love him simply by saying, "Hello," had to stage an intervention. "Dude, I didn't teach you all my moves for this. Find a real person." (I should point out that my friend did eventually find a real, good woman on Christian Mingle. It does work. He fell in love, they were about to get married before tragedy struck)</p><p>Unfortunately, I took my friend's comical struggles on Christian Mingle as evidence that I could find an on-line sex partner. I justified my intentions by the fact that I was meeting other Christians, so-called. If I found anyone equally depraved as me, then it was okay because we were both Christians. So you see, we can all pretend. I lived successfully as a Jekyll and Hyde for a few years.<br /></p><p>Thankfully, pretending to be what we are not sometimes leads to personal and spiritual growth. It's like acting. Speaking of acting, I dreamed the other night that I was Sam Rockwell. Best dream ever. When we act, we essentially walk in someone else's shoes and can learn what makes that person tick. If you ever watch a behind-the-scenes documentary of TV or film production, the actors often talk about how they asked a bunch of questions to understand their character. When we live as a Jekyll and Hyde, pretending to be what we are not, while we may still be living in our own shoes we are walking in someone else's shoes. That can be good for us.</p><p>I don't recommend purposely living an unholy life as a form of research. Some friends of mine once were talking about Cosmopolitan. Originally, honestly, I wanted to know why any woman would read that magazine. Even after asking, I couldn't quite understand. So I bought a Cosmo for myself. I then unfortunately got into the habit of buying Cosmo for all the sexy pictures and stories. </p><p>However, I do recommend analyzing and praying about our moral excesses and failings, to ask the questions any good actor would ask. Why does my character buy Cosmo magazines? Why do they use Christian Mingle as a secret release to lust? Why do they drink so much at International Night? For the most part I've been speaking about people pretending to be holy without actually being so but the reverse works, too. We can actually live as holy people and figure out what makes such a person tick, to understand them, and increase the chances of being holy or approximating holiness all our lives. Either way, if we come to know our excesses, we'll know ourselves better and can then seek to be held accountable by other true disciples of Christ striving to live into Jesus's call to us to be holy.<br /></p><p> For me, the greatest crisis in trying to understand and reconcile my actual self to my pretend self, and work out which was which, came when I developed what William called superhero powers. A couple of months into my second semester, a serious chest pain prevented me from enjoying my first D.C. cherry blossom festival. I came home thinking that I pulled a muscle. After a few nights of struggling to sleep, because I had to sleep in one position and one position only, the pain spread into my neck. Friends considered the possibility that I had indigestion or heart burn. I went to the hospital. No heartburn. Sleep worsened as I began to feel my heartbeat in my neck and in my wrists. Those were my superhero powers. Or at least, the introduction of them. William was certain that within a day or two I'd either shoot spider webs out of my wrists or have a heart attack. Perhaps the reason he was so good with women was that he actually cared about people. He could remember every conversation he ever had with you, it seemed, he was always asking questions about you and your life, and took it all humorously but seriously. Indeed, he was the only one to really take my condition seriously. It was because of him that I went to get myself checked out again and was first diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder.</p><p>The diagnosis crushed me. Jesus tells us to lay our burdens on him, that we have no reason to worry. Either God isn't real and couldn't take on my burdens, or I wasn't a faithful enough disciple. I couldn't handle either option. </p><p>Many weeks later, though, the spiritual darkness I experienced helped me see the light. I came to see, first, that sometimes our chemical dispositions are completely out of our control. It's the way I was born, created, and there's no shame in the person and being God gave me. Second, to the extent that I can control or cope with my anxiety, I learned what most triggers my mental and bodily stress and what forms of prayer or exercise that most put me in the presence and position to receive God's grace. The diagnosis and my journey through the desert wilderness led to my becoming an avid, and not just casual, cyclist. </p><p>Like me, you may be disappointed in the lives of prospective seminarians. Once we give our lives to Christ, and to lead others to Christ and further along the journey with Christ, we should strive to live accordingly. The good news, though, is that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were fully aware of his/their strange case. Some of my fellow seminarians attended "to find themselves," which, at the time, I thought to be a ridiculous waste of money. In the light of experience and reflection I see they had a good idea. Where better to learn about oneself than in a place trying to be holy and sacred? Unless we completely lose ourselves while at seminary, we are fully aware of our inmost souls, our darkest stains, our greatest lights, and our growing edges. Yes, seminary may be disappointing, but the hope and prayer is that, at the time of graduation, we will have seen the light because we lived in the darkness. A dark cave needs only a small light to guide us out.</p><p>Perhaps the journey to Christian perfection, as we Methodists say, will be longer by attending seminary versus going out in service under the leadership of an older elder, but with the necessary self-reflection and prayer seminary is no less a part of the holy journey. What I'd say, then, is that we should ask our pastors what embarrassing, sinful, unholy, and dark things they did in seminary. Most importantly, ask what they have learned from those experiences about themselves and about how they can use those experiences to better relate to and serve their churches. Current pastors and seminarians should ask the same questions because if we seek to keep our darkness in the dark, then a stain remains on our hearts and we can't drag all of who are towards God's light. </p><p>Indeed, all of us should ask those questions of ourselves. Do we show the world a holy self when, actually, we are still hiding our sin away in a corner? Past or present unholiness needs to be addressed and learned from so that we can walk the journey. Our journey is lifelong. At some point we need to stop pretending and be the people God has called us to be. To do that, we need to put our pretending to work.<br /></p>John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-13722833259408578412020-09-09T13:51:00.002-07:002020-09-09T13:52:26.708-07:00Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up: Living with Baboons<div>My seminary tenure was punctuated by a number of memorable experiences. The Fund for Theological Education awarded me a grant that enabled me to ride my bike across the country to raise awareness about and fight human trafficking. Wesley Theological Seminary also requires some type of an immersion trip for Master of Divinity students. By the time I and other students embarked on our trip, I had already decided to switch my degree, but I wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to spend two weeks in South Africa. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>South Africa attracted me as the land of Steve Biko. Of course I knew about Nelson Mandela but I had seen Denzel Washington portray Biko in the movie, <i>Cry Freedom</i>, and life could never be the same. After watching that movie, I read Malcolm X's autobiography and found a lot of connection between the two and my affinity for Soren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre's form of existentialism. I had come to understand that the power capable of instituting equality between people and races is one's own consciousness of self, what Biko called <i>black consciousness</i>. Political activism had its time and place but, I felt, should never be a priority. After all, Christ's kingdom is not of this world. We can choose on our own to live in that kingdom at any given time. So I was desperate for this once-in-a-lifetime chance to visit the country and ask South Africans themselves what they felt about the different approaches of Biko and Mandela.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Prior to the trip, there were a number of hurdles I had to jump. First, I had to read a bunch of books and attend some discussions with my fellow trip-goers. Certainly I learned a lot about South Africa's history. Apartheid was the unfortunate result of many years of unjust colonial activities and decisions. One could not possibly separate apartheid, the legal separation of the races and condescension of black South Africans, and the associated racist biases and societal racism, from the century plus of "the white man's burden." It became clear to me that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, its amnesty, and its recommendation of reparations were the only possible path forward for a country that wasn't so much dealing with five decades of apartheid but two hundred years of racial and cultural battles. Focusing on the tip of the iceberg, namely, which individuals and laws are to blame, can't possibly heal deep rooted emotional and spiritual issues. To this day I have a hard time understanding why white people seem so concerned with equating the terms "white privilege" and "racism" with "blame." As Robin Di'Angelo says, to have white privilege or to be racist, or both, does not mean that you are a bad person or that you are to blame. It does, however, mean that we need to participate in the work of healing and reconciliation with those who have been shut out of political processes, job interviews, raises, peace and justice simply because they have not received the same privilege and been on the receiving end of racist--often unintentionally--policies. All this I learned in my reading. Complex histories require complex, creative, grace-filled, and restorative solutions. However, I found the discussions rather sad. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>One part of the discussions in particular seared itself into my memory. Dr. Beverly Mitchell, one of the resident theologian professors, asked us when we first became conscious of racism. We went around the room telling our stories. Most of the black students had some horrible experience to relate. In a way, that is the day I became conscious of racism in all of its ugliness. But then most of the white students told a story in which they played the hero. They saw or heard someone receiving the brunt of a verbally racist attack or they couldn't stand states' voting laws that often disenfranchise minorities, so they stepped in to set the matter right and then themselves were depicted as traitors. Not all the stories were quite so Don Quixotic. What saddened me about the whole affair, though, is that my fellow white students didn't seem to be doing any of the introspection the history of South Africa seems to require of us. Obviously I can't say for sure what was going on in the heads and hearts of my brothers and sisters. I can say, however, that I was the only one who shared a story in which my own racism was the heart of the story, which simultaneously made me the best and worst white person in the room that day. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>I first became conscious--as distinct from "aware," because my high school teachers made me well aware--of racism at college in Vermont, the whitest state in the country. Late at night I found myself at a convenience store when a beat-up old car drove up, parked quickly, and out stepped a young black man wearing a bandana and jeans falling well off his butt. My first reaction was to hide behind a shelf of candy bars. It took me a few seconds to realize what I was doing. Even then I had to muster courage to believe the best of that young man and stand up straight. Terrible, I know, but common. Indeed, I bet you have acted similarly at least once, perhaps by feeling scared merely because a bunch of young black or Latinos are sitting around in the middle of the day, not at work, clearly lazy, up to no good. Not that any of them actually are lazy or up to no good but we are quick to feel those conclusions shooting from our gut to our brain and back.</div><div> </div><div>Another obstacle was, perhaps obviously, getting to South Africa. A few months before the trip I learned that I have generalized anxiety disorder. I don't get panic attacks or acute symptoms but I am constantly stressed and there are some things that, if I think about them enough, will make my blood explode. Flying thousands of feet in the air with only a few feet of metal between me, a bunch of nothingness, and certain death is certainly one of those blood-boiling things. Thankfully, I had already been seeing a psychiatrist shortly before the trip so he could prescribe me some drugs for the twenty hour flight. Not long into the flight we hit turbulence. I didn't know it was turbulence. I thought it was a fun ride at the park. "Wheee" may have escaped my lips. My friend Joanna--who promised my mother before the trip to keep me safe--was sitting behind me calling out for help. "John John, please, do you have a vomit bag up there?!" I had no idea why she was asking so I didn't look all that urgently. Meanwhile, the guy next to her was vomiting all over the place. Minutes later the guy got up to clean himself and Joanna told me the whole story. Try as I might I couldn't feel bad because the drugs made it impossible to feel anything.</div><div><br /></div><div>Even so, getting on the plane should have been my first concern. Apparently you are supposed to sign your passport. Not only that, but I had forgotten that, when I got my passport a few years before, I had planned on traveling to Canada but never did, and therefore had no prior opportunity to learn that my passport was still unsigned. Of course, the TSA agent noticed immediately. "Are you telling me that you've had your passport for nearly five years and you've never signed it?" The thought that after paying for the trip, freaking out about the flight, and reading all those books and having all those conversations would have been for nothing flashed into my mind. What was I going to do if I wasn't allowed onto the plane? I needed the trip to graduate from seminary with the degree I was pursuing at the time. My mind was too preoccupied with a miserable future to respond. We stood there, silently, for about half a minute before Joanna said to me, "John John, say something. Maybe you can sign it now?" Yeah, maybe I could! Before I could suggest that myself, the agent said, "It's okay. If you were a criminal mastermind, you probably would have had a response ready." Grace abounds.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Getting to South Africa was the challenge. Being there was almost entirely a joy. I can remember the large, outdoor street markets with beautiful, exotic jewelry and paintings and plenty of counterfeit movies; swimming in the ocean nearly at where the two oceans meet; climbing along a cliff and thinking for longer than I should have that I saw a whale that turned out to be a rock; the powerful worship services we attended at small, rural churches, under tents, and at a mostly white church whose current pastor was the son of the famous Peter Storey; and eating lunch with my classmates by sharing from one big plate of meat. Worshiping with Alan Storey, though not quite as uplifting as other worship services, reminded me of why I'm proud to be a Methodist because, despite a challenging history, we have generally been on the right side of racial justice. I realized, further, that here was this son of a famous pastor, a famous preacher in his own right, leading a church whose attendance was nearly doubled because our crew of about twenty were present. Even the best preachers and churches can be small. There is reason to never give up.<br /></div><div> </div><div>Because of the people I shared the trip with, even the more spiritually challenging experiences of the trip were enjoyable. We visited Robbin Island and saw the cramped quarters where Mandela and too many others were treated as inferior, we went to the hinterlands, we spent time in the Apartheid museum and other similar places. We had to be warned not to give money to the destitute children of the shantytowns because otherwise they would morph into a horde, and we heard how this shantytown on one side of the tracks often reported electrical deaths as parents tried stealing electricity from their wealthy, white neighbors on the other side of the tracks. I remember those young faces with wide smiles, also holding out their hands.</div><div><br /></div><div>When we returned from the trip, I was asked to represent the South African contingent at a seminary worship service where a representative from each cultural immersion trip (there were many) would speak for a few minutes, highlighting the benefits of the cultural immersion program generally and each specific trip. I hesitated at first because I've always disliked the common comment people make after a mission trip or studying abroad: "it changed my life." I've never much liked that phrase because, usually, the person's life changes not at all. I told my advisor I would explicitly say the trip didn't change my life and yet, still, she had confidence in me. Sure enough, every other speaker said that their lives were changed while I did not. It's true, though, that my life didn't change. Indeed, my theology and philosophy were confirmed: Biko's concept of black consciousness, and other similar forms of it, is crucial to living well in society together. We each, existentially, must understand ourselves as a person with life, and therefore we are a worthy person and should not wait for others to give us worth, praise, or equality. As a human, we must enjoy this life given to us by God as much as possible and allow others to enjoy their life as well.</div><div><br /></div><div>What I told those gathered at that seminary worship service I now tell you: I was confirmed in what I already believed because of experiences that had almost nothing to do with the sad history of South Africa. Of course, these experiences are no less a part of South African culture, just not what you'd think of as being important. For instance, the first memorable experience was eating at a fancy restaurant where, prior to being seated, we learned how to use a hand drum. During the meal, dancers in cultural costume put on a show in the middle of the restaurant, at one point pulling someone out of their seat to dance in front of complete strangers. Having been voted most unique in high school, I thought that would be fun. Then, next thing I know, a terrifying, giant mask is looming over me as the person behind it pokes me to bring me forward to dance. A group of masked dancers then tried teaching me some dance moves, which went horribly wrong, but was incredibly fun. The music, the dancing, the atmosphere of hospitality of knowing I wouldn't be judged by anyone and it was all in fun, were imprinted into my memory. </div><div><br /></div><div>Likewise, I clearly remember showing up at some nondescript neighborhood to have a chat with those who lived there. The whole neighborhood was there because, well, they all shared life together, would walk through each other's doors unannounced to chat about life, ask for help and prayer, and enjoy one another's presence. They could do this easily because their front "doors" actually opened onto a courtyard precisely meant for community gatherings. During our time there each resident shared the story of how they received their name, which had real and actual meaning for who they were and are; and then invited us to share our stories and gave us new names. At the end, they pulled out their own instruments and started up a dance party.</div><div><br /></div><div>The most memorable part of the trip of all, for me, was the animals. Many times we had been warned not to come anywhere close to baboons because they can literally rip your face off. No joke. About halfway through the trip, our group van had to stop in the middle of the road because a crew of baboons were slowly making their way across the road. These baboons knew they owned the road. We were near the coast at this point and so were very near a cliff where tourists often stopped to take pictures of the ocean. One large male baboon tried opening the doors of a car that belonged to two young women. From the van we tried yelling to them that they shouldn't turn around and walk back to the car but they didn't understand us. Eventually, they turned around and found the baboon sitting on the roof of the car, as if to say, "If I can't get in, neither can you." A few minutes into this wild adventure, I decided to get out of the van. For some strange reason, our tour guide, Skip, responsible for our safety, let me. The husband one of my classmates came with me along with Skip. All the while Joanna is yelling at me, "John John, I promised your mother I'd look after you! GET BACK IN THE VAN!" The end result of my foolishness was a once-in-a-lifetime photo shoot of my kneeling next to young, wild baboons (the picture of that you can find on my blog); and I was also the only one who caught a glimpse of a baby baboon trying to drink out of a Coke bottle he had picked up somewhere. Only a few days later, we ended our trip with a few days on safari, where my jeep group almost got rammed by a bull elephant and was chased through the night by the same bull elephant and our safari guide had to drive backwards in the dark. </div><div><br /></div><div>So, as I say, my favorite and most precious memories had little to do with the history and lessons South Africa has to teach us. To me, the trip was a highly enjoyable adventure. It was not life-changing. However, it must be said that the trip was life-<i>affirming</i>. While my theological, conceptual, intellectual, historical, political, and life ideas were not changed, I did for the first time realize that people are not just people defined and collected into statistics. People are <i>persons</i>, <i>creatures</i> of our God. Whatever life situation any of those we encountered on our trip may have been experiencing, they were still a person. They could still enjoy life, dance, sing, welcome and offer hospitality, and rejoice as much or more as we do. </div><div><br /></div><div>I also remember a father and son we came across riding their bike up a long coastal climb. We met them at the top and, having only started riding a road bike a few months prior and therefore not knowing much of anything, I said, "What a great ride you must be having, it's a great day!" The father replied, "Yes, I'm not sure you know how challenging it is to ride this mountain in the wind, but it is great to be out together." He's right. I had no idea (though I have come to hate riding my bike in wind). Even so, he had the opportunity to praise God for the time he was spending with his son and the view they had at the top. Whatever anyone may know about the challenges or successes you have or are experiencing in life, your consciousness of yourself and relationship to God matters most because no one can take away the fact that you are a person, a child of God. There are plenty of reasons to get depressed, to blame external factors for our state in life, but through it all we still exist as a person. Thank God for that. There is an infinite gulf between knowing and thinking that on a conceptual level and then seeing it lived and expressed in the lives of people who have every reason not to enjoy life, not to give thanks, not to dance. They didn't allow their history or poverty define them. My philosophy was confirmed but in a life-affirming way, and that makes all the difference.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>To be fair, as well, I did come away slightly changed. I came to realize why consciousness of ourselves (whether black consciousness or anything else) in an existential sense cannot be the end of the story. As Jean-Paul Sartre says, existentialism must be a humanism. We cannot possibly see the shantytowns and hear the stories of people's dying trying to steal the electricity from the other, affluent side of the train tracks and then say, "Well, at least you can still know yourself as a person who can rejoice in life." Our consciousness of ourselves as persons made by God who can enjoy life, sing, and dance should further lead to working to ensure that our life and the lives of others give each and every one of us as much chance as possible to see life as good. Simply existing and being given the gift of life is good, but there's a lot of work to do out in the world to help others better see life as good. Existentialism, consciousness of ourselves must be a humanism. In being conscious of ourselves as persons we must be conscious of one another.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>With that said, I still don't believe I needed traveling to South Africa to learn all that. Neither do you. We don't need to travel to some faraway place to find ourselves or understand how to live better together. What we need is a consciousness of our spirit being witnessed to by God's Spirit--you are alive, you are a person, you are good--so that we can then be conscious of one another. If we recognize that, we'll realize that the spirit of life is much more important than a focus on laws, rules, policies, numbers, finances, and beliefs. Believing, knowing, and feeling ourselves as good, worthy people (remember how God says all is "very good" after creating us?) and believing, knowing, and feeling that about our brothers and sisters is most important. We can then show up to ourselves, our families, our friends, our churches, and our communities day after day, year after year, doing our best, dancing our songs, climbing those mountains, supporting one another against the wind, dancing our dances, and kneeling next to baboons, and all the while enjoying and rejoicing for life. But we must do it together, conscious that I am no better than you and vice versa. In other words, to truly understand who we are in relation to God as a created person that is good and able to rejoice, we need the Other. That's how Sartre puts it. Without opening ourselves to the reality of the Other, we can't know our own full reality. This we can do every day, all the time. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes I think that churches find it particularly problematic to be open to the lives and consciousnessess of others. Often those churches that most desire to be multicultural are nearly entirely white. Declaring that we are open and welcome to diversity is not the same as actually being open and welcome. And then often pastors will hear feedback from their parishioners along the lines of, "I've never heard anyone say such and such about that scripture passage," or, "Isn't having Communion more than once a month a Catholic thing? We shouldn't do it." Underneath these comments lies a resistance to openness. </div><div><br /></div><div>Often, though, your pastor invites you to partake of Communion every Sunday through Lent (if you're not Catholic) or exposes you to a new reading of scripture precisely to make you conscious of the fullness of who God has created us to be as persons. The purpose isn't to change secretly convert you to a different denomination or change your beliefs or practices but merely to expose you so as to be conscious of how great and vast our God and our life truly are. It's likely that your pastor does this because he or she has experienced their own grand adventure, often because seminaries nowadays require those types of experiences. Your pastor, then, probably knows the benefits of singing and dancing in new ways and with new persons, of taking risks by getting out of the van, and hearing stories of others' lives. At the end of the day, you may only find yourself confirmed in what you already believe and think, in how you already live, but hopefully your confirmation also comes with an affirmation of life--your life and all life, baboons included.</div><div><br /></div><div>If we can be open to the consciousness of the Other, and the life history behind that consciousness, then we may have a new lease on life. The flight home from South Africa was rough. More so for me, perhaps, than others, because I had never pulled an all-nighter, but after the long flight we landed in D.C. around 6 o'clock in the morning, and so my sleep rhythms wouldn't be too messed up I didn't want to sleep too much once we returned to the dorm, which only made me more grumpy. A deafening and depressing silence filled the cabin when our plane came to a stop but not yet at the terminal. No one, it felt, wanted to break the silence and possibly incur the wrath of one of the other grumpy passengers. Probably we all thought, "Let's just stay silent, focus on ourselves, and get out of this plane in one piece." Yet one child decided, "To heck with it," and he would burst in upon everyone's consciousness. All of a sudden he yelled out, "DO YOU KNOW THE MUFFIN MAN, THE MUFFIN MAN, THE MUFFIN MAN?" We were tired and didn't want to deal with anyone else... but now, we all burst out laughing. The whole plane was then all smiles as we helped each other off to wherever we were going. A new lease on life.<br /></div>John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-58394577236707408162020-08-06T07:17:00.000-07:002020-08-06T07:17:49.089-07:00Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up: We Blew Stuff Up<div>My roommate, Joel, as I've said before, was a werewolf. Signs were aplenty. He had the body and facial hair to prove it; he often paced up and down our small room as if the supernatural detectives were hot on his tail; he would exercise religiously, without his shirt, as if he had a lot of energy to burn off; and he'd often scratch his beard anxiously. Full moons were suspicious times. One last sign: Joel wanted to brew his own beer. The way I see it, only supernatural demonic beings would want to brew their own alcohol with their own secret ingredients.</div><div><br /></div><div>That such a desire would indicate a werewolf is further evidenced by the fact that we lived on campus at a Methodist seminary. Methodists, as you may know, are not supposed to drink alcohol. There are a number of historical reasons for our ban against alcohol and gambling. Though holiness is part of the equation, much of the equation leans toward helping lift people out of poverty. Drink, gambling, smoking, etc. are often forces of impoverishment. Once in the cycle, money goes down the tubes. Certainly that would resonate with graduate students, you might think. Already burdened by undergraduate debt we have chosen to continue our education towards a vocation that won't pay well. Surely we wouldn't drink. True, surely we wouldn't, in a logical world. Many seminarians unfortunately do drink, however. Even so, it takes a special soul--or lack of one, in the case of werewolves--to brew one's own alcohol on campus of a Methodist seminary.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don't mean to say Joel doesn't have a soul. He has one of the biggest, most caring souls I've come across. Nonetheless, on he forged with his dorm brew of dandelion beer. Financially it was clear he was a graduate student. It was a makeshift brewing container. If memory serves it was one of those slow cookers my wife uses to plate tender, tasty chicken. But, hey, it fit all the necessary chemicals and it locked, so it became a beer brewer.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, I had no say in this project, of course. After all, I was a first-year student and Joel was an RA. Yes, the one brewing alcohol at a Methodist seminary was in charge of creating a safe and secure environment inside the dorm; of ensuring that we all followed the rules of our dorm covenant. One day, shortly after winter break, I was told that one of our cabinets would be used to store the brew. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>At the time, the revelation inside our cabinet meant little to me. I wasn't using the space myself except to steal garlic cloves that Joel kept there. Joel always kept a rather large stash of garlic as if trying to convince me he wasn't a supernatural demonic being. After the story I'm about to relate, though, I realize that home brewing beer in our room may have been his way of paying me back for how our winter break began. Back in December I had offered to drive another friend of ours up to her home in Massachusetts and take Joel to Burlington, Vermont, so that he could hitch a bus ride over to Maine while I visited friends at my alma mater. On the way, I was chatting away while driving and suddenly our friend said, "I think you need to take this turn," when it was approximately fifty feet away. Not wanting to miss a turn, I took the turn at sixty miles per hour, to the pure horror of the others in the car. I believe Joel said, "You're not really going to TAKE THAT AHHHH!!" I laughed maniacally as the two right tires decided they no longer preferred touching the road. "Aha, aha haha HAHAHA." The laughter probably didn't help. Later that day we got pulled over as I almost committed a felony on Vermont roads, driving nearly twice the speed limit through some unknown town. Apparently it was the first ever time Joel had been in a pulled-over car (a few years later, I'd be in the car when Joel was pulled over for the first time as a driver). Yet later that day, late at night, we discovered that my friends weren't exactly waiting for me, so Joel and I sat awkwardly in a campus home while my old friends went out to a party. All of that so that he could hitch a 2 a.m. bus ride. Who could blame my werewolf roommate wanting to pay me back?</div><div><br /></div><div>Over the coming weeks, Joel would occasionally take down the slow cooker to check on it but otherwise I forgot all about it until one lovely spring night in D.C. The famous cherry blossoms were out, the semester was nearly over, and all was well. To take advantage of God's goodness in which we were all rejoicing, we gathered together for a night of playing cards in our half-kitchen. Granted, I wasn't there, but I am writing as if I were because I wish I were. The brew was nearly finished so Joel decided to bring that slow cooker with us to partake in the joy of our friendship. Boy, did that brew involve itself in our friendship. When he brought the brew to the room, Joel remarked, "The pressure in there is really high," but did nothing about it. There it sat so that, in the middle of a hand of euchre...</div><div><br /></div><div>KA BLAM! <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>In the movies, when there is a loud explosion, they often portray the aftermath with dazed characters who can't hear anything except a strange tinny noise. Those movies aren't kidding. A very loud silence prevailed as we anxiously looked around trying to figure out what just happened. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>A bomb went off! Someone threw a bomb through the window! They hate seminarians! <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>"I have glass in my leg. In my leg. Glass. In my leg."</div><div><br /></div><div>"Are we dead? Anyone dead? I'm alive. Are you hurt? Who's dead?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"What the hell happened? What the flipping hell happened?"</div><div><br /></div><div>"Wait. Where's my beer?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Such were our reactions. We discovered that we had to be particularly careful touching our hair, or our clothes, or the table, or anything. Glass was everywhere. Beer--all that werewolf beer-was everywhere. Crowds were, well, not everywhere. Many were too afraid to leave their room in case, indeed, a bomb had just gone off. Once we came to our senses and knew the true cause of the explosion, we divided into two groups: those who needed transportation to the hospital for glass removal, and those who would stay behind and clean up the evidence. The clean up was sad--no beer--and lasted well into the night. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt. More thankfully, the dean of housing, after grilling Joel on what in the world he was thinking, let Joel go with a mere, "No more brewing beer in the dorm." Perhaps even more thankfully we received a lesson in how stupid seminarians can be.</div><div><br /></div><div>Especially when we first enter pastoral ministry recently minted with degrees, we seminarians think we know it all simply because we know the ins and outs of theological discourse. Sometimes we might even impress our churches with how deep our knowledge runs. Never do we miss an opportunity to name drop. "You know, I think what Karl Barth had to say applies here..." could well define how we do ministry in our first years. Perhaps some clergy minister that way throughout their lives. Perhaps, even, some churches prefer believing that and acting like their pastor learned all that is necessary in seminary and will go to great lengths to prove it. The problem, of course, is that no matter how well trained--whatever good "training" means for pastors--a pastor may be, no matter how good a pastor's grades in seminary, the pastor is just as likely as anyone else to explode a homemade brewing experiment or blow up a church.</div><div><br /></div><div>When Daniel Goleman and other psychologists coined the phrases "emotional intelligence" and "multiple intelligences" they did the world a great favor. Many already referred to such distinctions with the phrases "book smarts" and "street smarts." Generally werewolves are fairly street savvy since they have to be in order to remain hidden. That applies to Joel, too. Yet even then, we might not have the particular intelligence required to notice built-up pressure and then also know what to do to prevent a catastrophe. No one person possesses all the intelligences, all the gifts, let alone in the proper degree, that are necessary to properly tend the brew, or the congregation. It takes a village ultra-focused on the goal to maintain the health, love, and enthusiasm of the dandelion beer that is church life. The pastor is part of that village but only a part.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Hence why it is so important to understand that each and every church is God's church. No church belongs to the clergy nor to a sovereign. It therefore makes little sense to join or leave a church because of the pastor. Sure, you may come to like one pastor's sermons, or one pastor's visitation skills, or one pastor's passion for global mission, or whatever. But if you join the church for that reason, you are almost surely going to be disappointed by the next pastor who doesn't exhibit the same spiritual gifts. Besides, what about the people sitting next to you in the pews who don't care about your priorities? The church is the church, not the pastor. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Recently I heard of someone who left a church because she was in the hospital for four months and not once did the pastor call to check in on her. That is actually a legitimate reason to leave the church. I say that not so much because the pastor didn't come to visit or at least call, I say so because it means not a single person in the church noticed that she hadn't been coming. The fact that no one in the church called or visited is what most bothers me in that story. The church is the church, not the pastor. Therefore, when I hear, as I also have heard recently, that someone left a church because an invited speaker once said, "more resources means more ministry," I'm furious. Apparently the person took offense at such a statement because trust should only be placed in God, not in money and resources. That's fine, but simply because an <i>invited speaker</i> says it, or even if the pastor said, doesn't mean that the church necessarily acts that way. The church is the church, not an invited speaker.</div><div><br /></div><div>What I'm saying here applies to all individuals within a church. Just as the pastor is as likely to blow up the church as anyone else, so is the lay leader, or the treasurer, or Joe Schmo sitting in the back row. Too often we pastors hear of people leaving a church because they overheard so-and-so say such-and-such and they didn't like the statement or the tone or both. Or, perhaps, the church was having a Bible study on women in the Bible and they didn't understand why we needed to study that topic. I mean, c'mon, give each other a break, including the pastor. We are all idiots in one form or another. We all brew dandelion beer in Methodist seminary dorms from time to time without thinking about the consequences. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes we may even think that the person blowing stuff up is, in fact, a werewolf. Even then that doesn't excuse us from not following Jesus's model from Matthew 18:15-20. If someone harms you, sins against you, or offends you, the response is not to leave the church, perhaps especially when that person is the pastor. The response should be to go to that person and seek reconciliation using elementary school tactics, namely the I-statements. "I feel this when this happens, and I hope we can understand each other." If that doesn't work, bring someone else from the church to act as a mediator, another person in the room who might be able to bridge the gap of understanding and ameliorate compassion. Then bring along the whole church. For Joel, all it took was a simple conversation with the dean of housing. He didn't need to be stripped of his duties. Indeed, knowing how good a person Joel is, he probably didn't even need that conversation because, usually, when Christian brothers and sisters know and see the hurt they have caused, or the hurt they could have caused, grace convicts and transforms. While we might rightly hold our pastors to a higher standard, part of that standard should include an expectation of their alacrity in asking for forgiveness and seeking to understand when they have caused hurt or offense. No pastor can do that if we don't include pastors as part of our church, the family Jesus talks about. They, too, must be seen as people that we seek reconciliation with. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Understandably I never miss an opportunity to highlight Jesus's words in Matthew 18, but most relevant to this story are those passages urging kindness to pastoral leaders. Hebrews 13:17-19 comes to mind, which partially reads, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls and will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with sighing--for that would be harmful to you." Concerning pastors who may be blowing everything up, the first part of the passage may seem strange. However, probably every pastor can tell a story about a parishioner, or two or three, who has said something similar to, "Look, I know you're young, so let me tell you how things are going to be," or, "You just don't seem to understand," or has even laughed at the pastor behind their back. Submitting to the pastor's ideas and vision isn't the point. Rather, submitting to the pastor's authority and calling, trusting that indeed God has raised this person up to be a pastor, just as God as raised you up to fulfill various other roles within the church, so that you do not treat the pastor as if they are ignorant, naive, too young, stupid, dumb, etc., is the point of the passage. If we neglect to trust the pastor's calling and challenge their right to fill the position, then their ministry will be full of sighing and pain, which will dampen their fire to serve the church. Yes, pastors are idiots like the rest of us, but that is all the more reason to treat them as well as we expect them to treat us. We can disagree, we may hope to change their minds, but we shouldn't expect pastors to superhumanly do all that we want them to do all of the time in exactly the way we want them to do it. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Before James launches into his admonition to speak less and tame the tongue, he says, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For all of us make many mistakes." Anyone considering to enter seminary with an eye to pastoral ministry should hear these words loudly and clearly. Our churches, too, though, should act with grace towards those mistake-prone idiots who happen, for some reason, to have been called by God to lead instead of heaping upon pastors additional cares and worries. Already pastors go home finding it hard to sleep as they review the mistakes of the day, the explosions they may have caused, and how many glass shards may need to be removed later. Already pastors go home finding it hard to sleep as they pray for discernment to reveal all the homemade pressurized vessels about to burst that have thus far gone unnoticed. There is a reason why the later letters of the New Testament describe the holy qualities a church leader should possess: the vocation is not easy, will likely cause burn out and a host of health issues even under the best of circumstances. We don't need to make their job harder. If we don't understand why our pastor could say or do what is clearly
dangerous, then we can ask, we can talk, we can laugh about our
foibles. Foibles probably sounds funny on purpose.</div><div><br /></div><div>Every child of God has room to grow and therefore deserves God's grace. In the meantime, they may blow stuff up, and so deserve our grace, too. That includes pastors. And werewolves--for whatever strange reason I decided to include them in this piece. Let us then do our best to offer God's grace to our brothers and sisters, lay and clergy, angel and demon; offer forgiveness, reconciliation, understanding, hope, and renewal, so that to whatever extent possible we may each go to sleep at night in peace. With some garlic by our bedside.<br /></div>John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-63688900037847896092020-07-29T07:56:00.000-07:002020-07-29T07:56:57.785-07:00Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up: Bobby the Beaver<div>
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During my third and final year in seminary I was the president of Student Council and, therefore, had oversight of the student-run bi-monthly journal publication. One of my best friends was a stay-at-home at the time and clearly had <i>nothing</i> to do with her life so I roped her into being the editor of the paper. Without knocking the previous editions of the school's journal, I think our publication was the best during my time at school. My friend, who I'll call Alice, had the good sense to hand over design work to someone who knew how to design. That simple decision to delegate made us look amazing. We also worked hard to solicit and incorporate submissions from students normally not given a voice in the paper, particularly foreign students who weren't always comfortable with their grasp of English. In my biased opinion, all went swimmingly for the first three or four months. Then disaster struck.</div>
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Some students had, that first semester of the school year, decided to launch an experiment called "Bobby the Beaver." You might already hear in the name the intention to copycat Smoky the Bear, except for a seminary. Rather than prevent forest fires the intention was to keep the dormitory community living on campus grounds clean. </div>
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Soon there were signs above the sinks in our kitchens of Bobby the Beaver relying on you to wash and put your away your own dishes; above urinals and toilets to make sure you flush; around entrance doors to make sure you closed the door (to protect us from stranger danger); and other similar warnings. These posters usually carried the message, "Shame on you if you don't listen to Bobby the Beaver." Not long thereafter Bobby had his own Facebook page on which people were encouraged to post pictures of shameful behavior where, indeed, people commented, "Shame on whoever did this! How could anyone be so careless?!"</div>
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From the beginning I wasn't a huge fan of Bobby the Beaver. The idea of encouraging generosity and consideration to our dorm mates, of course, was and is a good one. Yet the execution itself seemed lacking in either generosity or consideration. What if someone ate a quick breakfast and had to run to class, planning on cleaning their dishes later? Shaming that person for being late to class, or getting an emergency call about their dying grandparent, or whatever it may have been, didn't seem the appropriate response. </div>
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Plus, I always wondered at the choice of Bobby's targets. For instance, there wasn't a single Bobby the Beaver poster reminding people to shut off lights when they left a room or in the hallway or to turn off the TV in the common room. Saving the environment was strangely absent from Bobby's hopes for our community, particularly strange given that Smoky the Bear was, so to speak, Bobby's uncle. Likewise, the insistence that the toilet be flushed was out of concern for cleanliness--cleanliness for whom other than the originators of Bobby the Beaver. One of the masterminds was a self-described germophobe. I understand that, I do, but my rejoinder was always that he could then flush the toilet before using it if he was concerned about germ splash. Why must the rest of trying to save and conserve water take an environmentally destructive action for one person's sake? Oftentimes in households that care about the environment yet still flush the toilet even when the water is yellow, the choice to not let it mellow stems from a concern for the one who has to do the cleaning. Not regularly flushing a toilet does sometimes result in more work for the household janitor. That would be even more true for a dorm. I never heard a concern expressed for Luis or any of our other janitorial staff, however.</div>
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The (im)moral reach of Bobby the Beaver quickly spread to cover everything and anything thought to be wrong by those who participated. Why couldn't the student body, made up of natives of all different backgrounds, communities, and nations, see the obvious common sense that a handful of students shared? Notes were left all over the place anonymously expressing Bobby's disapproval, whether because someone put their sweaty and smelly shoes outside their door to air dry or because someone accidentally tracked in some dirt from their bike. Until one day a student used lipstick on Alice's car to draw an unhappy face on the windshield with Bobby's mark.</div>
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You should know that parking at my seminary was notoriously difficult during the day. There were barely enough parking spots for the students who lived on campus so when you added professors, staff, and commuting students to the equation, cars often had to be parked in illegal sports in the lot, down the driveway, on the street, or somewhere in the posh nearby neighborhood where no one liked cars to be parked. It was a constant challenge. An added challenge was that if you had to park along the sides of the driveway, there were two service entrances you had to avoid, one for the dorm and another for the refectory (seminarian language for dining hall). Oftentimes, after circling the lot and neighborhood a few times, those sports would be the only ones left if you had the courage to parallel park where there wasn't any room. You should also know that, for some strange reason, some students had taken up the habit of parking by the service entrance to the dorm since that entrance had not been used by any service vehicles in anyone's memory, though there was a sign making it clear that parking down the little service road was as illegal as anything could be on a seminary's campus. The last thing you should know is that, in a rush one day between returning home from work, needing to pick up her youngest child from the apartment so her husband could go to class and so she could pick up her other kids from school, Alice parked blocking the service entrance to the dorm. Though technically and officially no one was supposed to be parked in the service entrance anyway, one Bobby the Beaver advocate found it necessary to chastise Alice for her tight motherly schedule with lipstick that took Alice an hour to remove--an hour she did not have before picking up her kids from school so they saw the consequences of a shame culture.</div>
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In comes the school's journal to the story. Alice wrote an editorial describing and reflecting on her encounter with Bobby the Beaver. She had come to realize, she wrote, that the whole idea, while good in its intentions, was flawed in execution for two reasons that I hadn't thought of myself: first, the majority of our foreign student population hailed from South Korea, where shame is often used to extremes, and many of them, if anyone took the time to listen, would tell how they hoped to learn a different way of raising kids by attending seminary in this country; and two, use of Bobby the Beaver may teach a form of ethnocentric license, as in, "my way or the highway, get with the program." Neither seemed to Alice to be lessons we wanted to promote as Americans or as pastors-in-training.</div>
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Next thing we know, before the publication of the piece, word gets around to the masterminds of Bobby the Beaver and they are sitting in my dorm room yelling at us. Their demands were simple: we couldn't run the piece because "everyone" knew who was behind Bobby the Beaver, including the pastor mentor of one of them, and the piece would ruin their reputation. After a little while, two of them realized that the yelling was a bit much and was entering insulting territory and tried to calm down the third, but the third of them went right on yelling and screaming. Sometimes she would leave the room, ostensibly to cool down, only to return louder than before. Alice and I, I'm proud to say, never raised our voice, tried to hear and understand, ask questions, but hold firm and explain our position as to why an opinion piece that questions the appropriateness of a concept and practice without condemning the people behind it shouldn't be censored regardless of who wrote it. Unfortunately, I'm less proud to reflect that perhaps the reason we kept our cool had less to do with, you know, Jesus, and perhaps more to do with the nagging thought that surely people were out in the hall with popcorn listening to the whole exchange. </div>
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Why, I wondered, were they worried about people's perception anyway? If this person's pastor mentor knew about Bobby the Beaver, surely, as a good pastor, they had already thought through the possible consequences and reactions others may have towards the little rodent. If others on campus knew and approved of the beaver, how would one person's opinion suddenly sway them to the contrary view? Besides, is one's reputation really something a Christian is supposed to worry about? I wondered if, truthfully, their strong response to the forthcoming editorial had less to do with their reputational anxieties and more to do with the Spirit's convicting. Maybe the fun they were having at the helm had been chipped away by some as-yet unfinished self-reflection and prayer. While it would have been nice to theologically and pastorally pursue these ponderings of mine, we had no opportunity. The berating ended in a storm.</div>
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The next day Alice and I were both called into the dean of student life's office for questioning. Well, it wasn't so much questioning as telling. The previous night had been fun for me because I got to sit around for about twenty minutes receiving the brunt of Bobby's fans' attacks waiting for Alice to make her way over after putting her kids to bed. This day, Alice got to return the favor, as I saw she had already spent some time alone with the dean when I arrived after class. I knew how awful the feeling was--though, to this day, I can't imagine dealing with such foolishness in the midst of working full-time and caring for two young boys with one on the way in a very large belly. We were told why we thought publishing the piece wasn't an abuse of Alice's power as editor. That may sound like a question to you but it wasn't. After an hour of explaining to the dean that editors of newspapers across the country are daily expressing their opinions in editorials, that such a piece didn't come anywhere close to infringing upon the journal's policies or standards by not targeting, name-calling, condemning or judging (or even naming) individuals, and that had any other student in the student body written such a piece she can't possibly have had an issue with it, the dean finally left her office to ask other staff members if they believed the piece violated an editor's power and authority. She returned to inform us that she'd allow us--allow us--to run the piece. Apparently plenty of other mature, working adults saw the light of day.</div>
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Alice and I had won a victory. A completely hollow victory, however, because it was sad to us that fellow pastors-to-be would have treated the situation as they did and that the dean of student life at a seminary immediately and without question sought to assuage the hurt feelings of entitled young adults, who clearly felt that no one should have the right to disagree with them or question their practices or seek to engage in dialogue, and didn't bother to take the time to understand all sides of the equation. Are Christians now meant to ensure that no one's feelings are hurt ever? Or are we meant to engage in disagreements in love and understanding to, hopefully and prayerfully with the Spirit's guidance, discern what is good and right? Within minutes of our "victory," Alice decided to withhold publication of her editorial and resign from her position and I concurred. </div>
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Two related but separate lessons emerge from this story. The first is perhaps obvious as we ask the question, how should Christians act toward one another? In Matthew 18:15-20 as well as in other places in the gospels and epistles Jesus and the apostles encourage brothers and sisters in the faith to reconcile with one another through peaceful dialogue, confession, forgiveness, and understanding. After reading Archbishop Desmond Tutu's reflections on his time leading South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, <i>No Future Without Forgiveness</i>, it becomes clear that the world expects winners and losers. Varying disagreements and mistreatment of others must, according to the world, be resolved by reversing the power dynamics. If black South Africans were once oppressed, then their coming to power must mean that white South Africans will reap what they sowed. Yet that is not only unhealthy for a country it is also not Christian. Bobby the Beaver fans need not have perceived the duality that they did: either they are right and well-liked or they are wrong and disliked. The goal is not for one side to win and the other to lose; one side to be cheered and the other to be disparaged. The goal is understanding, reconciliation, confession, forgiveness and compromise.</div>
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It is true that in 1 Corinthians 6, where Paul teaches the wayward Corinthians not to bring brothers and sisters to court and instead resolve disputes within the church as people who love one another, Paul writes, "I say this to shame you." I'll come back to this passage in a bit but for now it's worth pointing out that things like shame, guilt, and judgment have their time and place, Jesus himself does little of any. Rather than shaming people for what they have done wrong, Jesus calls his disciples to something higher and better. Indeed, shame often works to keep people down. Having worked with kids before becoming a pastor, I remember one child who often, whenever he did something naughty, would walk over to a corner on his own, knock on his head a little and, if anyone went over to talk to him, would say, "I know, I'm just a bad boy. I can't do anything right." His parents and teachers and other adults in his early life had told him over and over again how he was a bad boy. Shame had been the parenting tool of choice each and every time. Shame may prevent a person from doing wrong but it doesn't teach or empower anyone to do good, to do better. </div>
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Whatever we may think of President Obama, I love what he said about "woke" and "cancel" culture. Here's the video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM">The Guardian</a>.<span style="color: black;"> "That's not activism," Obama said. "If all you're doing is casting stones, you're probably not going to get that far." How right he is. There needs to be compassion and understanding of the person or institution that we're trying to change and not only ideological purity or comedic shame and canceling of the other. I fear, however, that the Bobby the Beaver episode reveals that even our pastors-to-be (who are now themselves clergy) would rather cancel the behavior of others while patting themselves on the back--as Obama says, "Look at how woke I am"--than do any prayerful transformation work through Christ's spirit. Just as the idea of Bobby the Beaver had good intentions and could have been executed well, so, too, the precepts of "woke" culture have solid foundations in tolerance and acceptance. Too often, however, those of us who firmly believe we are on the right side of history make no time to tolerate or accept or welcome or understand or confess to or forgive our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, on the other side. </span></div>
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When we fail to approach our brothers and sisters with the intention of understanding and reconciliation, and instead seek to win, whether we admit that's our aim or not, we not only lose an opportunity to share in the good news of Christ but we also bring the stain of sin upon ourselves. I loved the fact that Alice and I took the high road. On some level I felt that we had gotten back at everyone who acted as if and portrayed us as somehow evil in the whole charade. After Alice resigned, the journal went downhill fast. The Vice President and I hired a new editor who can't possibly have had the design and editorial credentials she claimed to. Trust me, this isn't bias talking here. While the journal continued on, it no longer had the quality it did prior to Alice's tenure. The new editor said she couldn't possibly produce the journal without a certain sum as payment, well above our budget, so that I had to use my own stipend to pay her. Even so, the submissions and design were inferior to anything I had seen in my three years at the seminary. I felt good about that. I hoped everyone involved noticed what their foolishness brought about. The dean of student life said she'd start reading each publication more closely to monitor. Well, she had a front row seat to the consequences of her actions.</div>
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Therein lies the problem, though. I should not have felt good that the journal's quality sank. My goal should have been to ensure that each and every issue of the journal was as good if not better than the last. Instead, I found myself thinking and feeling in terms of winning and losing. I won the moral battle, I told myself. Today I know that I lost the moral battle, if ever there were one, because the best resolution would have been to follow Jesus's advice in Matthew 18: to continue meeting with Bobby's fans and find reconciliation. Meeting with some outside authority figure, a judge, to rule who won or lost did no one any favors.</div>
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That brings us to the second lesson of this story, namely what our relationship as Christians should be to authority. Again, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 that Christians should not bring disputes to judges, particularly because those judges are often non-believers. We who know how to live rightly through Christ, whether we're living that way or not, are capable of resolving and reconciling on our own. The way I read the passage, I hear echoes of 1 Samuel 8 in which God, through Samuel, tells the people of Israel that they should not want a king. God alone should be their leader and ruler. The problem with kings, God says, is that even if they are born and raised in and as one of the people of Israel, they always corrupt the governing office as well as the people they rule. Much of the reason why scholars argue that the books of Samuel, telling the story of King David, were written well after that period is that God's warning unfortunately rings true king after king. Even Solomon, the celebrated king of wisdom, had glaring faults that directly led to the division of the kingdom into two. God didn't coin the phrase, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," but He could have. Why in the world, then, would a seminary handle the Bobby the Beaver situation by giving an authority the power to judge? If that authority figure had used her position to mediate, as talked about above, then well and good, but instead she judged our case while the prosecutors remained absent. If our actions barely constitute justice how can they possibly constitute discipleship?</div>
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Knowing full well that I am not being quite fair to Bobby the Beaver's originators nor to the dean of student life, particularly when I call them "entitled," but it seems equally clear that we must question our relationship to authority. Simply deferring to authority to adjudicate rather than relying on our power to love and reconcile is a position of privilege, and therefore entitlement. Who are the ones most likely to receive "justice" when we hand responsibility over to authorities? As Paul noted, dating all the way back to Leviticus, and as our own recent history has confirmed again and again, the wealthy and powerful usually win. Those who rely on authoritative adjudication are usually in the habit of getting their way and so repeat the process as often as they can. Hence the yelling, hence the subsequent poor handling of the situation. As I write this piece I acknowledge that I am not exactly being fair, especially concerning my own role in the story, but it is to make sure an appropriate point is made.</div>
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Another unfair target in all of this, of course, are seminaries everywhere. It is hard to be honest about seminary life without also painting the place as a brood of vipers. I'll probably do so again. Yet it is important to remember that seminary is a place where pastors and theologians are trained. Seminary is a place of learning. While there we do not only learn who wrote what but also what the daily ins and outs of Christian living, of being a pastor, may look like and should look like. Hopefully we have all learned from this story. Learned how best to use Smoky the Bear and his relatives and learned how to reflect on the ways our Christian witness is impacted by our small and large choices.</div>
John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-51107028223340721952020-05-21T12:04:00.001-07:002020-05-21T12:09:18.116-07:00Fish Bowl<br />
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(second installment of Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up) </div>
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While at seminary, I launched a promising but ultimately
short-lived stand-up comedy career.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
jokes were aimed at church-going folk and therefore I had the perfect audience
to test my skill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, I found
that Jesus was right: prophets will always be kicked out of their
hometown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Same is true for
comedians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My fellow Wesley students
laughed at me; if I went and told my jokes at other seminaries, I was the
funniest person they had ever heard (true comment I heard multiple times).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Anyway,
many of my jokes centered around dorm life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Current seminarians, I figured, would get a kick out of them, even the
somewhat dirty stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Probably many
students living in a dorm at any school would at least giggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or at least smile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or at least think to themselves, “Yeah, that’s
funny.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I became
interested in stand-up comedy through Mitch Hedberg, of all people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you know him, you might find it weird that
a seminarian and prospective pastor would tell his jokes word for word, in Hedberg’s
voice, with the same tempo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I listened
to his jokes constantly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’re short,
stupid jokes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My kind of comedy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“When I’m on acid, I often see beams of
light, and sounds a lot like car horns.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Or, “I saw a wino the other day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He was eating grapes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said, ‘Dude,
you have to wait.’”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hilarious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Steven Wright, a hometown comedian to me, was
also an inspiration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“My grandfather
once asked me how old I was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said, ‘Four.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said, ‘When I was your age, I was five!’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he cackled wildly and threw his glass
against the wall.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s how I remember
the jokes.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Here is
a sampling of my own comedy set: I hear your mother likes to play euchre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would you consider her an—eucharist? </div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I don’t
drink, but I go to parties where everyone is drunk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I crush beer pong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one ever said both partners have to
drink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, my partner is black out
drunk by the end of the evening, but I’m nailing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’ll thank me in the morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or the next evening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometime.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A friend
of mine went on a second date with her seminarian boyfriend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They watched <i>When Harry Met Sally</i> in
her dorm room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next day, we’re all
in her room asking how the date went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
asked, “So, diiid Harry <i>meet</i> Sally?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I threw in a wink.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She kicked me
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess she thought it wasn’t an
appropriate question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll take it as a
yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have a vivid imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, we all do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Somehow we imagine three can be one.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
girlfriend is always complaining about dating in a fish bowl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her life and our life should be her and our
business only, she says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It all started
when people overheard my saying to her, “Put it back in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s still good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve only worn it once.”… But that’s how I
handle laundry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I’ve only worn a
piece of clothing for one day, I put it back in the dresser.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s still good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then I assume that when I take clothing
out of my dresser that it’s clean.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
mean, obviously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why would I put it back
in the dresser if it’s not still clean?... I just need to remember how often I’ve
worn things.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>When I
first met my roommate, he was only wearing shorts and sandals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He put his sandals outside the room to
dry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He also has a crazy-long beard,
wild eyes, and massive amounts of hair all over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My first thought was, “Man, I thought we
deported you all to Vermont years ago!”</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I once
saw someone’s mattress roped to the top of their car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The license plate said they were from
Vermont.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I guess that’s what they call a
mobile home.</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This
jacket is dry-clean only, which means—it’s dirty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oh wait, I’m sorry, I stole that joke from
Mitch Hedberg.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes I forget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the time, actually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t have a great memory… (a plant will
then ask me, if I have a bad memory, do I know how many times I’ve worn my
shirt)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Am I supposed to keep track?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just took this shirt out of the dresser today,
so it must be the first time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wouldn’t
put something in the dresser if it weren’t clean.</div>
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You get the idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
particularly fond of the fish bowl joke because it’s a true story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, they’re all true stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Comedy is real life told over again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the time the least funny people are
those who try to exaggerate stories to add humor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a story isn’t funny, it’s not funny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will become less funny when you exaggerate
because we will all know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Most of
the time, also, dorm life can feel like a fish bowl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see the same people every day of your
life for at least a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In seminary,
chances are good you’ll see the same people every day for two or three years,
since wherever you are going to seminary, even if it’s at a big school like
Harvard, the housing for theological students is likely not to encompass a
dozen buildings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what they don’t
tell you about going to seminary is that the seminary dorm fish bowl is a lot
of pressure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether it’s true or not,
you feel like people are judging you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At
college, if someone thinks you’re re-using a condom, they’ll just think you’re
making a poor life choice; at seminary if they think the same thing, they’ll
not only judge you for getting someone pregnant out of wedlock but also for
having sex in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus, why
do you still have the door open?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Geez!</div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Living
in a seminary dorm is like around Jeremy Bentham’s theoretical panopticon: one
central institutional tower overlooking everyone else as they live in glass
houses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every action and statement is
policed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Foucault adds, social
policing doesn’t even need to happen overtly—in fact, policing is more
effective when it is silent and self-propelled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You think everyone around you will judge you if you don’t wear a
button-up shirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Indeed, the girlfriend
who complained about the fish bowl once flew into a rage because one of our
friends said to me one day, “John John, you’re wearing a button-up shirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doing big things, doing big things.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to pull my girlfriend out of the room
and calm her down but she kept saying, “I’m sick and tired of people’s judging
every little thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So what if you don’t
wear nice clothes?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t wear nice clothes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor do I care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She did, though, and society’s policing
effect is strong enough to make most people care.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One day
a bunch of girls at seminary promoted going a day without wearing make-up as a
statement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I heartily encouraged said statement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why do girls wear make-up just to attend
class, anyway?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the day approached, a
bunch of those who thought the event was a great day pulled out, including my
girlfriend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People would see, after
all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I started wearing make-up to
make the same, but opposite, statement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Unfortunately, I had developed a reputation by then as a weirdo, so
people simply thought I was weird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Around
the second week, for instance, my favorite professor paused mid-sentence and
then asked, “John, are you waiting guyliner?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I responded affirmatively and he smirked as if to say, “Of course you
are.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked good, I can tell you that
much.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
point is, one way or another, even if no one is actually judging you, living at
a seminary dorm can be hard work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took
the approach of not caring but, truthfully, some days that was more of an act
than a reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Plus, it's not always good not to care. I didn't care when I went on a first date with my soon-to-be girlfriend at a breakfast joint. I proceeded to engage our waitress in a five minute conversation on how many kids she thought she'd have and why. The biggest why in that story is why my date agreed to another one. Therefore, </span>if you’re thinking about
attending seminary or encouraging someone else to go, this must be said:
prepare your mind for a long haul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
theological challenges are one thing, sure, but the emotional rollercoaster of
dorm life is the worst.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Perhaps most of all, though, the fish bowl of a seminary
dorm should force us to reflect on how we understand the role of pastor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To oversimplify: is a pastor someone who
comes in and tells us what to do; or is a pastor someone who journeys along
with us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our answer to the question will
greatly influence whether seminary dorm life is an obstacle to hurdle or a preparation
for the life to come.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Granted,
not all seminarians are planning on being pastors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The oft-mentioned girlfriend was one of those
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe that’s why she struggled
with the fish bowl idea so much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
everyone else, however, I think that the fish bowl nature of dorm life is good
and necessary preparation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone who
attends seminary as a second-career person misses a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to be judged as a pastor will be.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Don’t
get me wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t think pastors
should be more judged than anyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nor do I think we should be judging anyone’s life in the sense of looking
down on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus says that’s
wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what Jesus says, goes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are, though, good aspects to the
process of judging and being judged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>God
loves us wherever we are on the journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At every moment, though, God is also offering grace in abundance so that
we can live the life God intended for us to live in which we are not (in the
sexual sense) putting it back in, it’s still good, with the door open, without
being married, in the middle of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s better to receive and live in God’s infinite grace out of love and
our own desire to remain close to Him, but on occasion the worry, “What will my
dorm neighbor think?” is a good alternative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As Paul says, the law does serve a function as it shows us how we are
sinners.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sometimes,
I think, in pastors’ efforts to no longer be placed on a pedestal, we forget
that we are still the primary model for churchgoers in how to live like
Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is true that we are not some extra
holy person who swoops down saying, “Do this, don’t do that,” but it’s also
true that if we are going to remove ourselves from the pedestal, we have to
open our lives up to our parishioners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If we don’t, then we aren’t giving them a real-life, tangible model to
replace the pedestal-pastor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if we
do open our lives up to our parishioners, it will probably feel like we are
living in a fish bowl.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Our fish
bowl for pastors needs to have boundaries, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know that we should set up our pastor’s
bedroom with a livestreaming, 24/7 webcam.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nor should we think that our pastor should be available to us all day
every day in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all need
a break from people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That includes
pastors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet there must be, I believe, a
healthy balance between, a) knowing and understanding that our pastors are not
extra holy, that they are on the same journey with us, as a human being, asking
for and needing God’s grace, and b) asking our pastors not to put up a barrier
whenever they are with the church, so that we can ask and hear personal stories
and have a living, breathing disciple who’s making the path to Jesus a little
more well-trod.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
To achieve the balance, pastors
must and should even be expected to be somewhat holy, to be striving toward the
perfection Christ himself commands and promises (as we Methodists put it),
because otherwise part (b) will simply encourage people to remain stuck in the
mud.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our lives need to be a gentle nudge
toward greater and greater holiness in Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As if we are saying to our folk, “Yes, I am a sinner, too, and I know
God’s grace; but here’s the next step or two God will carry you to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t be afraid.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Indeed, in a way, I think all
Christians should accept the fish bowl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If
our personal lives do a disservice to Christ when the personal becomes public,
then we should maybe pray about why that is and ask for God’s help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m the first to say that my seminary life
did a major disservice to the holiness journey of many people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first I tried to hide it, which made things
worse, because publicly hiding my personal life just meant I didn’t address the
harm my personal life was doing to myself and others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From experience, then, I say it’s probably
best if we all change our understanding of what we mean when we say, “personal
life.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If our personal life made public
would shame us, then we should do something about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Considering judgment in this way, as a
comparison between the life we are living and the life God intends for us to
live, then it is beneficial to our lives as disciples with a destination to our
journey. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thankfully, we have One who can
help us reach that destination.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
In a way, too, we should acknowledge
that a Christian’s life will always be judged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If we are truly following Christ, those who are not disciples probably
should think we’re weird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is a
judgment we should accept.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why, yes, I
do wear my clothes three days in a row to save the environment; I absolutely
would consider myself a eucharist; and even, on occasion, Harry meets Sally
because I love my spouse and we build one another up spiritually.</div>
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<![endif]-->John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-29701772553719267092020-05-13T06:03:00.006-07:002020-08-06T12:01:49.937-07:00Move to Seminary(this is the beginning of a series I'm calling, <i>Seminarians Don't Blow Stuff Up</i>)<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>My
decision to attend Wesley Theological Seminary over the other schools in
contention was based on a lengthy pro-con debate with myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boston University School of Theology requires
the GREs?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not even applying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wesley will accept me immediately, with
scholarship offer?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I guess Duke is
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s how I decided.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The only
question mark in attending Wesley, located in Washington, D.C., was how big my
scholarship would be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For that, I had to
visit the school and take an interview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>After my interview my family and I would get a free night-time trolley
tour of the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Essentially, it was an
almost free family vacation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
Since I knew hardly anything
about the school except its address, my parents and I were blindly following
our printed directions to the school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This was well after the invention of GPS but well before my father
accepted using such technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maps and
printed directions are, to this day, his only form of directional compass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we’re driving through the city, elated that
our long drive from Hudson, MA was nearly over, and after correctly navigating
one of D.C.’s many multi-lane rotaries we suddenly saw a sign for Wesley
Theological Seminary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It came upon us
unawares, however, and my father wasn’t able to stop and signal to turn left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He safely decided to wait until the next
entrance to the school to turn in.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
Next thing we know, we’re in
Maryland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, Wesley’s campus
consists of four buildings smooshed together around one small parking lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We passed the only entrance to the
school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From where I come, that was
unheard of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even my undergraduate alma
mater, though a relatively small school of 2,000 students, sprawled a few miles
and five or so entrances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My first
impression of this school I had already committed to with hardly any research
done was already a disaster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your first
impression of a seminarian’s intelligence can’t be great right now, either.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
Once my parents turned around
and drove into the right place, they let me out but said they’d wait until I
found where I needed to go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The map they
had sent me of all the campus locations I might need to know the whereabouts of
made everything seem confusing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I walked
around in a circle for a bit until I realized that everything on my map was in
the <i>same</i> building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who does
that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I walked in the gathering
room, I was greeted warmly with a folder full of stuff and sat down by myself,
as I like to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I realized that my
second impression of the school was no better.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
What defined my second
impression?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looking around the room and
watching everyone for a bit, I saw only one girl I thought I might be
interested hitting on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Out of about
twenty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Figuring this was representative
of the school generally, this was a bad sign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Worse, there was on particularly smooth, ruggedly handsome man engaging
a bunch of the ladies all at once with funny chatter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I had to compete with him for the handful
of women in the entire school I might be interested in, my next three years
would not be very joyful.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
Later that night, on the trolley
tour, our driver and tour guide was an egomaniac.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever he said and did was clearly intended
to garner laughs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On occasion we would
stop and have some few minutes to explore nearby sites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one stop near the end of the tour, one prospective
student came back to the bus with a minute or so to spare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For some reason he was confused as to whether
it was the right bus, so he said to the driver, “Is this the…?” and never
finishing his question, the driver responded, “No, I don’t think so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorry.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The kid stood there for a second, as if he wanted to challenge the
driver, but then as if he didn’t have the balls to do disagree with authority
he walked off to see if any of the other trolleys were the right one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With only a minute to do so, he didn’t return
before we left and continued our tour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The driver said, “What a quack that guy was,” as we drove off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t see that kid again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did, however, hear about him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An hour so after returning from the tour in
our dorm rooms, one of the school’s representatives ran out saying one of the
students had an emergency downtown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
That story doesn’t say much
about those organizing the scholarship weekend but it also doesn’t say much for
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why didn’t I stand up to authority
and say that kid had the right bus, just not the right words to tell the tour
guide so?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was
right, since I couldn’t actually see him as he was talking to the driver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely, though, I could have rushed outside
to see who it was and ask him what he was looking for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Truthfully,
I didn’t even know what I was looking for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The time between “hearing the call” and applying to seminary was short,
and once I was accepted I gave no thought to what I might expect there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clearly one thing I expected was a bigger
school (Wesley did and does have quite a number of commuter students, but I
didn’t know that, so it appeared small geographically and population-wise). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Beyond that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I don’t know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was seminary
about?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What kind of people go to
seminary?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What kind of people should go
to seminary?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In hindsight there are all
sorts of questions I should have asked myself before moving in, if not before
applying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the least I should have
been aware of my own expectations, hopes and dreams.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What did I expect to “get” out of
seminary?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I’m honest with myself and
with you, at the time all I wanted to get was the degree that would make me a
pastor because obviously I’d make an awesome pastor—let’s get the ball
rolling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even without any conceived or
preconceived notions, what I found the day I finally moved in proved a major
disappointment.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Driving
from eastern Massachusetts to Washington, D.C. takes anywhere from eight to ten
hours, depending on traffic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The day I
moved in I made the trek myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That
day was full of excitement because, a) as a twenty-two year old kid, it was the
first major step that I took on my own; b) I was moving to D.C. for goodness
sakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus, there’s always a feeling of
elation when you arrive somewhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Ah,
we’re here!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next time you take a long
train or plain ride, take a look around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You’ll see tired and exhausted people who (once bags are in tow) are
suddenly full of energy again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So there
I was, a proud Masshole glowing with arrival-elation and freedom from my parents.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Then, I
pick up my keys from the housing administrator, take a couple of boxes out from
my car, and walk into the dorm, only to find no one there welcoming or
directing anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Granted, this wasn’t
the only possible day students could move in, but it was such a day, it was
expected students would be moving in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No
“Welcome” sign or anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some doors
were open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peek inside and a second or
third-year student might blankly stare back without a wave or a hello, let
alone any, “Oh, are you moving in?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which
room?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can I help?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good thing I’m smart enough to figure out
whether room numbers are increasing or decreasing so that I didn’t walk in the
wrong direction to my room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I forget now
which room number I had.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>21?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s go with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>As I
walked down the hall, wondering if I had entered some Twilight Zone where it
was move-in day but it actually wasn’t move-in day, some strange little man
with no clothes on except shorts and the hairiest chest and back you’ll ever
see popped out of one room, running towards another room, laughing
hysterically, “I have so much hair!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
person who lived in the room he ran out of yelled back, “Isn’t it great?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously all I could think at this moment
was suppressing my dear hope that this man didn’t run into room 21 because if I
let myself hope that he wouldn’t be my roommate then I’d be crushed to find out
he was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Twilight Zone ensured that
he ran into room 21.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Outside
of the room were some sandals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Upon
reaching the room, the hairy leprechaun creature came darting back out, almost
knocking me over, and instead of apologizing for his haste he instead said, “Sorry
about the sandals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They smell really bad
and I didn’t want them to air out in the room.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>These were the first words anyone spoke to me that day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
Quickly the creature realized
his error because there were no other rooms for me to go to, it was a corner
room, so he returned and introduced himself as my roommate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was also one of the two RAs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I noticed, too, that he sported a full
beard that hadn’t seen a trimmer in at least a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was sure he should have been deported to Vermont years ago. He had these strong brown eyes that wanted to
look into and through you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was my
roommate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joel.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
Skipping ahead a little bit, to an
annual talent show night the school hosted to welcome its new students, Joel
donned a bright yellow tank top about five sizes too small, held up a picture
of Jesus, and gyrated while lip-synching to the song, “Stand By Your Man.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Watching his belly twirl around was funny, no
doubt, but it simply reinforced the question I began asking that fateful
move-in day: What in the hell had I gotten myself into?</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
God had called me to do great
things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was special.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Though I first heard the call from God to be a pastor around the age of
twelve, at that time I had no reference or reason for what was going on in my head
so I dismissed it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t until I was
a sophomore in college that I say I heard the call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when I did, despite being old and wise
enough to acknowledge what was happening, I still had no reason to believe it.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
The call came while sitting in
worship in a small, poor looking church, having listened to a three-person
choir that clearly hadn’t had any training and then listening to the sermon of
a pastor who was no doubt retired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You
can do better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will do better,” is
what I heard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the guy was a bad
preacher, so rural small churches need some revitalization, what could I possibly
do about it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hated public speaking and
I was no good at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t even like
people very much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nor was I a very faithful person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, I read a devotional once in a while but
I rarely attended church worship or anything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I prayed at night only because I felt guilty
and couldn’t sleep if I didn’t pray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
was nothing about me that said, “Pastor,” because pastors are supposed to be holy
and charismatic and I was nowhere close to either.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
A year later, as I was pondering
becoming a pastor and whether I could actually do it, I was sure of two
things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, God knew I could and
would do better than that crap pastor I witnessed the year before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, look at me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I wasn’t very faithful, but I was
awesome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a way, too, I could start
making the argument that I was holy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
didn’t drink, even though I was attending college, nor did I swear, take the
Lord’s name in vain, or any of that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
was the definition of straight-edge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second,
I definitely did not have any pastoral gifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There was no escaping that fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Until, during the course of an introduction to political science class,
I first befriended a young man with great intelligence and ambition but with
some combination of mental illness that made him a target for mockery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I didn’t like people, so I didn’t much
relish the idea of talking to this young man, either, but I despised how he was
treated and figured he needed a friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Suddenly I discovered within myself at least one gift that might be
useful as a pastor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, through the
easy-going encouragement of the professor, who required that we do short
presentations throughout the semester, I said, “what the heck,” and volunteered
for more presentations than I needed to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Suddenly I discovered that I was funny and a great public speaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
To this day I do not quite know
if I simply unleashed powers that were already within me or if God implanted
new gifts in my soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either way, God
made his point: if he calls me to be a pastor, I’m darn well going to have the
gifts to fulfill that call.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was
further confirmed when, at a campus ministry dinner, some random nun whom I had
never met before and without any lead-in asked me, as we were leaving, whether
I had considered being a priest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I told
her that, as a Protestant, I was considering being a pastor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She said, “Good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I see it all over you,” and then walked off.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
From then until my arrival at
seminary, God’s intervention in my life spoke volumes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, I was special.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was called to do great things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God had chosen me and given me the gifts to
do better, to revitalize churches everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Thus, whether I could have admitted it or not, I was expecting some
special treatment from the school I’d attend to hone my special gifts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, whichever school I attended would
benefit more from my time there than I would, since I’d later become famous and
they’d always get tag-along mentions whenever I made news headlines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I instead received “normal” treatment,
as if my arrival meant absolutely nothing to everyone, and was even embarrassed
by my new roommate, I felt humiliated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wesley
can’t possibly have been a good school, let alone the right school for me.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
As you’ll see, I often make
Wesley Theological Seminary the butt of some of my jokes and stories, but in
later young life, I have come to see that, actually, Wesley was the right
school for me and my initial experiences with the school prove that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
I needed to be humbled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One could even say that I needed to feel
humiliated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of all, though, I
needed affirmation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not affirmation of
my call or my greatness—I have enough of an ego to do that on my own if I want—but
affirmation of me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joel was and is a
crazy, silly person, who firmly believes some wild ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But so am I.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maybe not quite as crazy and silly to run around shouting about my body
hair or to provocatively dance half-naked serenading Jesus, but the same
elements are present within me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
As we’ll also see and have
already seen, I am attracted to women.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet I lived a straight-edge lifestyle in which I needed to be holy at
all costs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I desperately wanted women to
like me but I never acknowledged that about myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I created a Jekyll-Hyde persona within
myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went off to seminary both
expecting to be the most handsome, smooth guy on campus—because obviously
pastors are ugly—and also to find women who didn’t want to have any sexual
activity until after marriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t
know what I was looking for, what I wanted, who I was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
I needed a place that would
affirm me, that would give me the space to be me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I say I needed a place to affirm me, I
mean the me that God created me to be, faults and struggles included.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I needed a place to teach me confidence in
the good within myself and the sinfulness of the bad, but without merely
dusting over the bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I am called
to greatness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe I’m not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The point is that whatever I do in life, I do
it as me, not as some pretend version of myself that I think God or the world
want.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
We all need that place and
space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the time we haven’t thoroughly
reflected on who we are, what our expectations are, what our hopes and dreams
are, and so we need a community of friends and teachers who will journey with
us and guide us, to open our hearts and souls to ourselves and to God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t need any longer to wear a mask for
the public.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s exhausting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need a little silly and crazy so that we
know what we are looking for.</div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
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<![endif]-->John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-85755912032341855832020-04-01T11:38:00.001-07:002020-04-01T11:38:40.571-07:00Culture Infects ChurchOne of the main complaints and arguments that I have heard over the past two years as the UMC struggles to navigate its approach to human sexuality is that people are tired of culture dictating belief and action to the Church. The UMC, it is argued, only considers ordaining and marrying LGBTQ+ persons because the culture has gone astray and forced the Church into ideological submission. I want to briefly address that argument but, mostly, I want to instead posit that culture's real power over the Church is convincing us that we need to split or compromise in order to be healthy.<br />
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First, we should acknowledge that it may be true that the UMC, as with other Church denominations, has indeed been pressured or convinced to liberalize its understanding of human sexuality by the surrounding culture. Upon initial consideration, such a possibility, if true, seems heretical. If we believe in and follow an eternal God, whose Word and and commandments are unchanging, then the doctrine and practices of the Church should never change according to culture's own changing landscape; rather, the Church should dictate to culture, encouraging it to progress towards God's intended kingdom. While the argument makes obvious sense, history rarely proves the Church to have been the main mover. In the early days of the Christian movement, Christian doctrine and practice disallowed holding government office of any kind, volunteering for the armed forces, taking a life if coerced into soldiering, swearing an oath (to one's country, for instance), and a number of other practices that many Christians now do without a second thought. Over time, and particularly when Constantine came to power as the Roman emperor, Christianity was influenced by the surrounding culture. Those who argue that the Church shouldn't be influenced by culture are often the ones who are most passionate about patriotism, serving one's country with one's life if necessary, and demanding that others, too, stand for the national anthem and pledge of allegiance. Historically, then, making that argument consequently makes those people hypocritical. More than that, we could say that the Protestant Reformation marked the height of Christendom--when the Church and state were tied together and the Church looked exactly like culture--and since then the culture has often moved ahead of the Church in positive ways. Unless those arguing against the marrying and ordaining of LGBTQ+ persons, and use the unchanging freedom of God and Church as one piece of evidence or argument, also want to argue that we should return to legalizing slavery, fining and penalizing people who divorce, and demonizing, torturing, and executing Jews or other non-Christians, then we should stop declaring that any and all influence of culture on the Church is necessarily negative or evil. All those practices and laws just mentioned were discontinued mainly by the pressure of a secular society and the Church followed suit. Sometimes a secular culture helps the Church and its members reevaluate in prayer the words and model of our Lord and Savior, the Word of God.<br />
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Still, we can't possibly accept that every change and movement of culture will positively influence the Church's doctrine and practice. We can and should believe that God seeks to first act within the Church but also acts within the bounds of culture when the Church fails to listen. It would be ludicrous, however, to suggest that the Church always fails to listen and secular culture always succeeds in listening. There must then be times when the Church should hold the line against the infection of culture because in doing so it follows God's purpose.<br />
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Ultimately, a Christian's hope is to listen when Jesus calls, "Come and follow me." Further, Jesus commands and promises that we "be perfect" as our Father in heaven is perfect. We cannot be perfect as God is perfect, of course, so Wesleyans (which United Methodists are supposed to be) have the correct understanding of perfection: to be perfect in <i>love</i> as Christ was/is--essentially, despite continuing to commit mistakes, at least our heart is full of the love of God for God and neighbor. Therefore, the Church's purpose in establishing doctrine and practice is not to set truth, belief, or legalized behavior. Jesus rarely prescribes behavior beyond loving one another as God loves, which often translates into caring for the "least of these," the oppressed, homeless, hungry, etc. His famous "Sermon on the Mount" declares, "Blessed are the peacemakers, those who mourn, those who are poor,," and that we should turn the other cheek and other similar actions. Far from legalized behavior on marriage and ordination. Jesus's one statement on marriage, in context, has nothing to do with gay or straight and everything to do with not re-marrying. Following Jesus in the perfection of love must, then, mean more about our heart than doctrine and practice. The Church's doctrine and practice should only, insofar as it is possible, guide one's heart to love rather than anything else. Hence why I love Wesley's concept of a catholic spirit as detailed in his sermon of that title: what we believe what behaviors we believe to be universally right matter little in comparison to whether we love God and love one another. If our love be true, we can join hands and worship Christ together as we strive to live as disciples, upholding one another in spirit-filled prayer and accountability on our walk. <br />
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Anything beyond joining hands to together strive to Christian discipleship in a catholic spirit leads to a politics of power and control. And this is how culture has, in my opinion, most poisonously infected the Church. I have seen this play out in my churches: one as it navigates the UMC's minefield on human sexuality; the other as it generally interacts in making church decisions. Politics of power and control lead to factions, and factions destroy the Church. (Indeed, Wesley defines "schism" biblically, as the creation of factions, rather than the splitting away from the church. If there are factions in the church, there is already schism, and it becomes one's godly duty at that point to leave)<br />
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It doesn't require a rocket science to inform us that our culture today operates within a politics of power and control. There are, first of all, only two main political parties. These parties have such a wide tent that we can hardly tell where one platform begins and ends. If you were today to ask me what being a Democrat or Republican means, my answer would be so general as to be meaningless. Especially recently we have seen these parties completely reverse on particular issues simultaneously. Take what we call fiscal responsibility. When President Obama occupied the White House, Republicans railed against fiscal irresonsibility, of allowing the deficit and debt to grow; now that President Trump occupies the White House, Democrats now champion the cause while Republicans are mostly silent on the issue. Trump ran his campaign in 2016 on policies, certainly, but mostly on a cultural concept, that if he is not elected then "they" will ruin the country as "they" have already been doing. Now the Democratic frontrunner in the primaries, Biden, has a similar campaign strategy: Democrats cannot allow "them" to win because "they" will continue ruining the country.<br />
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What our current climate tells us is that policies and ideas rarely matter nowadays. Civility and integrity have also flown out the window. What matters today is that "we" win and "they" lose. There can be no other explanation for how the parties could so suddenly and completely rotate 180 degrees or for why the rhetoric on all sides seeks to exclude and target rather than engage in serious, meaningful dialogue. <br />
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The same can certainly be heard in our churches. I know that I've heard it. "If 'they' get 'their' way, we'll no longer be living biblically." Try to narrow down exactly who anyone means by "they" and you either fail or come to understand "they" to be everyone who disagrees. Our church lives have been reduced to a political battle for power and control. <br />
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Our ideal resolution in most cases is our own comfort. If we know that our own doctrine and practice are affirmed as "biblical" by an authority beyond ourselves, then we need not ever question our faith or understanding of faith. More than that, I'd argue that if our own doctrine and practice are affirmed, then we need never do the hard work of seeking the Spirit within ourselves. Why bother submitting ourselves entirely to Christ if we already know that our particular belief system and way of living have been affirmed as "the" way? Truth indeed becomes power because we have established the truth and we therefore have power over others who disagree ("they" need "us" in order to be saved) as well as having power over God Himself, for we have now set the boundaries into which God can enter our lives.<br />
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Of course, there are a great many people who are politically pure who, as Republicans for instance, have remained as pure Republicans and therefore take issue with some of the actions and policies of current White House and Congressional officeholders that are at odds with Republican ideals, rather than blindly lending support to anything a "Republican" happens to do or say. There are, likewise, a great many people who are able to believe particular theological doctrines but still joyfully join hands with other Christians who believe and practice differently. Yet the great majority of persons nowadays, I fear, have succumbed to the cultural norm of dividing into "them" and "us," and act accordingly, with great rage, fear, rudeness, and general unChristian behavior towards others.<br />
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To combat the poisonous infection with which the Church has become ill, I encourage all of us to remember and seek after what the Church and Christians are most meant to: Christ. It is our duty as disciples to indeed disciple, to follow, and to be perfect in love as our Father in heaven is. What that means for us is that we need to put aside divisions rooted in doctrine and practice. If we want to keep divisions alive for the sake of our mental comfort, then I suppoooooose I'm okay with Christian and non-Christian. But who is a Christian? Anyone seeking the will and spirit of Christ to live within them. Paul says that it is not he who lives, but Christ, the Spirit, who lives in him. Does it require certain doctrines or practices for Christ to live in us? Or faith alone? I'd argue faith alone, and the type of faith that is "meet for repentance," as Wesley says, so that we do no harm to ourselves or to others, so that we indeed love God and neighbor with all of our heart and soul.<br />
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Let us seek first and only the spirit of Christ to live in and for us. That will cure the cultural infection we are poisoned with so that we no longer assert our power and control over others, the very thing Christ says he came to relieve us from.John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-9224143719978694352019-10-24T08:41:00.001-07:002019-10-24T08:41:23.944-07:00Revival Without PastorsThose who know me know that I am a big fan of the movement of Methodism. I have come to believe that the decline and issues facing the United Methodist Church currently are rooted in forgetting or de-centering a core Methodist identity. Elsewhere I have written about a catholic spirit being central to Methodism, which is clearly missing nowadays, but also central to the spirit of the movement are spiritual growth accountability through class groups, the consistent use and practice of the means of grace/spiritual disciplines, the three general rules (Do no harm, Do good, Attend to the ordinances of God), and evangelism. Theologically speaking, free grace and Christian perfection/sanctifying grace were central. All of these were aimed at reviving Christianity and Christians generally. <i>You</i> can be holy as promised by Jesus; <i>you </i>can know and be God's love; <i>you</i> can be filled with the Holy Spirit; <i>you</i> can spread God's love. The revival worked: people were slain in the Spirit, the movement grew. It is my passionate belief that the same revival can happen again, that the people called Methodist and our special purpose to spread scriptural holiness across every land and across denominations can again live and thrive. It is also my belief that, aside from the obviously spiritual practices and concentrations necessary, we can return to reviving with one simple practical solution: increase lay responsibility, potentially and probably without pastors.<br />
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First I want to call to mind Randy Maddox's apt description of John Wesley's theological and practical system: responsible grace. Maddox rightly and well centers all of Wesley's theological program, which drove the Methodist movement, into those two simple words. We humans are responsible for responding to God's free, infinite, powerful, and loving grace. God's grace will save us, but without our responding, God will not save us, and it is by grace itself that we are even able to respond. And by 'save,' Wesley means that not only will God's grace justify/forgive us for a life in heaven but also, and possibly primarily, God's grace will transform us into the people we are created to be, full of God's love and spirit here and now. The essential point, though, is that each person must take up the responsibility of responding to and with grace. Each and every one of God's children is called into relationship with God; each and every one of God's children is called into discipleship with Jesus. God's grace is not merely free, and therefore cheap, but also places responsibility upon us.<br />
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The beginning of the Methodist movement clearly exhibits how that responsible grace frames a person's and community's life. To join a Methodist society (partly because Methodists were not at first their own denomination, people did not join a Methodist church, per se, but a society), a person had to agree to abide by the three general rules, listed above. Each general rule had its own specific guiding principles and actions, including drunkenness and uncharitable conversation under the first rule; feeding the hungry and visiting the sick and imprisoned under the second rule; prayer and fasting under the third rule. Then, a person was expected to be held accountable to that spiritual striving, to "continue to evidence their desire of salvation," by attending a class meeting at least once a week--if not also attending a band meeting, or group confession, once a week--to answer the question, "How is it with your soul?" and how the person is doing regarding the three rules. By no means were these class meetings intended to be enforcement of rules. Rather, the class meetings were intended to prayerfully support each person in attaining to the promises of Christ. Indeed, each person could become perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect, we can partake of the divine nature, we can have the mind that was in Christ, as God's Word tells us. This is not a perfection that rules out mistakes, but Christian perfection: having the same love of God and neighbor that Jesus had and has. Methodists believed that those promises of Christ were and are attainable through grace, and so responsibly joined together to mutually strive. <br />
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All of the above functioned without clergy present. A society didn't need a clergy person to respond to God's grace. One of the actions listed under "do good" is to exhort to any we encounter, so even evangelism and teaching occurred without a pastor. Local preachers from each church were licensed, sometimes up to a dozen, so that preaching would still be powerful without the pastor present. The pastor, clergy, was only seen once a month, or less frequently, to address any major issues the society may have and to administer the sacraments. When the pastor was around, he would certainly preach, often to the non-Methodists, but such preaching was already frequently happening. Without the ordained pastor playing a major role in the church, each person took up the responsibility of living into and spreading the good news, of ordering the life of the church, creating and performing and leading the church's ministries, and supporting one another through prayer, visitation, and accountability. <br />
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With each person taking up responsibility of living into a revived faith, taking the assurances and promises of Jesus seriously, the revival movement of Methodism grew at a startling rate even while it challenged society's status quo, attacking the evil of slavery and laying up treasure on earth, both explicitly listed in the general rules. <br />
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It must be said that the greatest role ordained pastors played in the growth of the movement was in evangelism. Spreading the good news was done by every Methodist, surely, but pastors were instrumental. Methodists were at the heart of the original evangelical movement--spreading the good news of Christ Jesus. For Methodists and all the original evangelicals, that meant addressing temporal, societal reforms that might benefit people in hearing the good news. Pastors were pivotal in leading the charge against slavery, forming schools for the poor and women and African-Americans, and advocating for equality. Pastors were also mainly crucial in spreading a revived form of Christianity, called Methodism. Methodist societies cropped up because pastors preached in new lands. We could say that pastors at the beginning of the movement were forming what we now call 'new church starts.' Stories abound of Methodist pastors entering a community full of dead or non-Christians and forming Methodist societies and classes. There are also plenty of stories of Methodist pastors having to re-evangelize Methodist societies as they were falling back into their old status quo, of wanting peace and security while laying up treasure on earth and owning slaves. <br />
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There can be no doubt that ordained pastors were critical in the growth of Methodism, but foundational to pastors' role was the ability and expectation to be itinerant, to move around. If pastors were not itinerant, they could not form new societies. More than that, if pastors were not itinerant, they could not have the same authority in re-evangelizing and reviving already formed societies. Any pastor can tell you that when their church needs to hear some hard words, it's best to bring in a consultant, someone from outside. An outsider is better positioned to tell a church that they need to shape up and reform. Itinerating Methodist pastors had a circuit, so you'd likely see the same clergy a few times within a year, but you couldn't rely on that pastor being present for long. Additionally, pastors' circuits were often changed after a couple of years. Essentially, then, Methodist pastors remained outsiders, and so could more easily maintain an authority of accountability to the reviving of responsible grace.<br />
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Today, the United Methodist Church has retained much of the original language of having local licensed preachers, lay servants, and the like, but much has changed. We live in a church that has drawn its ancestry from a later date than the thriving, reviving days of our beginning. Our family tree now dates back to when Methodists compromised themselves, allowing slaveholding, seeking treasure on earth, seeking peace and security, seeking establishment. Once we were established, we wanted our own pastors for our own church, and we wanted them to stay for longer than a year or two. It was then we began to see class meeting attendance, licenses for local preachers, and overall responsibility of lay persons all drop. No longer were individual Christians responsible for the functioning of the church, its ministries and evangelism, and indeed no longer were individual Christians responsible for their own living into the good news. The pastor became mostly responsible. Once the pastor becomes responsible for the functioning of the church, its ministries and evangelism, the person in the pews need then only profess faith. The general rules, spiritual disciplines, pastoral ministry, preaching and exhorting, evangelizing, and being held accountable and supported in any of that now all fits under the category of 'bonus.' This is our ancestry.<br />
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Unfortunately, the necessary consequence of placing responsibility for responding to grace on the pastor is that revival becomes replaced by survival. We become more concerned that our church grows and builds fancy buildings. Whether parents are bringing their kids to Sunday School is the main concern. When in trouble a church asks how it can avoid closing. Revival, on the other hand, concerns itself with people's hearts in and out of the church, and whether the love of God is blossoming. The danger of having a pastor should be clear.<br />
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How do we reverse our ancestral trend and return to the business of reviving? First, we need to re-discover our purpose and core identity as Methodists. We have been called up by God to spread and live into scriptural holiness, the promises of Christ. That should be our primary goal. Then, in the process, a practical solution should make itself obvious: to re-orient our pastors' relationship to the church, and our relationship to our pastors. We should not lay claim to or rely on our pastors.<br />
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Let me say clearly that we should not rearrange pastoral appointments just for the sake of doing so and thereby hope that growth will follow. No. Rearranging and re-orienting our pastors' relationship to the church and our relationship to our pastors is meant to again place responsibility for responding to God's grace on each and every disciple of Christ. With or without a pastor we should be capable of striving together and living into the promises of Jesus and running our church fellowship. We should be, and are, capable because God's grace is available to all and God has given us the means and model by which we can mutually fulfill the call of discipleship. It is therefore good and right for any church, regardless of denominational affiliation, to put their relationship to the pastor in proper perspective. Revival occurs when a church does not lay claim to or rely on a clergy person. At the very least the doors to revival can swing wide when each individual in the church takes up their responsibility.<br />
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For the sake of revival, I am therefore convinced that the UMC should change how it appoints pastors so that our churches can stop laying claim to and relying on its pastors. We should do so before such a change may become practically necessary. In all things we should be driven by reviving the spirits of our brothers and sisters. However, my proposal would also save churches money that can then, hopefully, be used in revitalizing ministry.<br />
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I propose that ordained or provisionally ordained pastors be again appointed to circuits of eight to ten churches, with a parsonage in a central location if possible. The cost of the pastor and parsonage would then be split eight to ten ways. Any church within the circuit that previously owned a parsonage that is not chosen as the central parsonage could then sell the house and invest in radical, long-term ministry. <br />
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Every week, the pastor would focus on one of the churches, to address issues, attend meetings, and preach and lead worship and administer the sacraments. Ideally, the pastor would use the same sermon, as long as it applies, throughout each pass of the circuit so that, during the week, the pastor can also be engaged in the wider community. I would then encourage a couple of weeks be taken after each pass of the circuit to address other duties: planning and writing the next sermon, forming new pockets of Methodism within the bounds of the circuit (same as engaging in the wider community of the churches, but a week concentrating on doing so), and any other administrative or district/conference duties. <br />
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For my idea to work, each church would not only need to take up what are now considered pastoral responsibilities, like worship, visitation, and leadership, but also would need to raise up a local preacher or two or three. These local preachers would ideally come from the congregation itself. If not, the local preacher could move to or close to the congregation in order to be part of the church society. The church could pay the local preacher/s a small dividend, equivalent perhaps to a 1/4 time pastor. That way, on the whole churches are still paying far less for their preacher and pastor than they do now for a pastor, and our local preachers would fit the original model that maintains church-wide and individual responsibility and revitalization. <br />
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Of course, ideally class (and band) meetings would naturally arise again, as well. Since there would no longer be a pastor able to visit and check in with folks on spiritual and physical needs, members of the church would have to do that work. It is not reasonable to put all of that burden on one or two leaders, so it would be best to have class meetings where everyone in the group can check in how folks within the group are doing spiritually and what guidance they may need, and the class leaders would visit anyone within the group in the hospital. These class meetings could then be the seed of new ministry or evangelism projects.<br />
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From personal experience, I can say that something like this model is already what most revitalizes a church. The ministries and work of a church that bear the most fruit and engender the most passion, the visits that carry the most meaning, are those brainstormed, led, and performed by lay members with little to no involvement from the current pastor. Whether my proposal ever latches on anywhere or not, it is therefore my hope and prayer that Methodists and Methodist churches realize the need to re-orient our pastors' relationship to the church, and our relationship to our pastors. Personal and collective revival can be on the horizon if we again find some useful model and means of being similar to the one I propose.John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-27481581775175086062019-10-23T13:12:00.000-07:002019-10-23T13:12:20.564-07:00Realistic ChristianityAs a colleague recently joked, we either live in a small world or clergy don't have enough friends, because recently I re-connected with a man who made a large impact in my life during my college days. Apparently, this man is great friends with an UMC pastor who was appointed close to me a few months ago. Who knew? This man's name is Matthew Works (you can read about him and his mission here: <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/matthew-works-one-mans-mo_b_800607" target="_blank">Huff Post Article</a>). <br />
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Anyway, during my lunch conversation with Matthew, we were talking about some of his frustrations that his life and message hadn't yet led to any substantial change. Why were churches not doing more to open themselves, literally and through communal life and ministry, to those who are homeless and/or in dire poverty? Why do churches pride themselves more on offering hospitality to a homeless guest than on actually welcoming that person into the community? While I reminded him that, indeed, his message had made substantial change in many people's lives, including my own, in how they disciple Jesus Christ, I did understand and relate to his frustrations. As a preacher, I am often confused by the resistance many Christians have to the life and message of Christ. Did Jesus himself not invite and call and command us to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and liberate the oppressed? And did he not also say that those who did not follow this call as if the homeless, hungry, and oppressed are Jesus himself will find themselves rejected by the Lord in the life to come? A long and fruitful conversation between us had begun as I recalled that, when I invited Matthew to speak at my alma mater, St. Michael's College, a professor welcomed his talk in one of his classes but then, afterwards, rather than comment on the meaning of a church's and society's need to open its doors, questioned Matthew's character. I have never recovered from the shock I felt. What, then, is the resistance all about?<br />
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Before I return to the fruit of the conversation I had with Matthew, it bears sharing a reflection on what we call evangelical Christianity I recently heard from a colleague. After about a year of listening to Christian radio stations daily for an hour or more, he realized that he had never heard anyone quote the words of Jesus, except for self-referential statements--I am the Way, Son of God, etc. I realize that I, too, have never heard Jesus's words quoted or spoken of on Christian radio stations. Scripture most often quoted concern the peace that comes from faith, how to be saved, proverbs about working hard or being wise or putting trust in God, and the like. My friend came to the right conclusion, I believe, in reflecting that evangelical Christianity shies away from discipleship, the type of radical life that our faith in Christ as disciples is supposed to lead to. "Faith without works is dead." Faith alone justifies us through Christ, but that faith should lead more and more to living the life Christ called us to. To not speak about that life and what Jesus said about it means that we are purposely cutting off part, if not most, of one's faith life. Perhaps it is because many are afraid of being as hospitable, inclusive, and justice-oriented as Jesus is, and we'd rather just say, "I'm saved, let's move on."<br />
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Or, perhaps, we ignore Jesus's statements on living out our faith through grace because we believe such calls are unrealistic. That was my attempt at understanding in my conversation with Matthew, anyway. How often so-called liberal Christians hear warnings that their demands and actions are unrealistic. Even and maybe especially Martin Luther King, Jr. heard such warnings. MLK's argument against white Christians' insistence on moderate, realistic change is one of the most powerful passages I've ever read. Likewise, it must be plainly unrealistic to many Christians to open our churches to those without shelter, to be a constant refuge, to engage in ministries that fight for and enact systemic, meaningful change in and for people's lives rather than occasional alleviation. 'The way things are' simply make Jesus's "sell all your possessions" and other calls on our lives unrealistic, so why bother including any of that in our understanding of what it means to be a disciple?<br />
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Then Matthew's ready response floored me. Referencing Peter's speech in Acts 3, Matthew commented that what Peter is really saying to those staring in unbelief and anger at the miracle Peter and John performed is, "Why do you wonder at what seems unrealistic? Jesus the Christ, who claimed to be the ideal, was and is real after all, and it is through him that we heal." Jesus the Christ, who claimed to be the ideal, and because of his claims was despised and later crucified, was and is real. Now, there is nothing particularly startling in that observation. Anyone who professes faith in Jesus as Son of God probably agrees. But I suppose many, of which I was one before this conversation, may not have thought of Matthew's conclusion: therefore, a Christianity that is idealistic is also realistic; and a Christianity that is not idealistic is not realistic. By urging gradual change, less radical policies, calling others to 'be realistic' because the ideal is impossible and won't work, by definition denies what is real--Jesus Christ himself who, according to Colossians, is the foundation of all that exists, all that is real. Jesus Christ, the ideal, is the real, and is the foundation of all that is real. To deny the ideal is thus to deny all that is real.<br />
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There is then no way out for us. We cannot say, "that idea or way of living would be great, but it's too ideal." The second we do, we deny Jesus, who was and is both ideal and the real. We have to actually shelter the homeless, actually liberate the oppressed, actually bring good news to the poor, actually feed the hungry. Whether we're talking about racial equality, income equality, gender and sex equality, housing equality, any number of other equalities, healthcare, pacifism, and on and one, the ideal must become the only goal for disciples of Christ because that is the only way to ensure a realistic Christianity.<br />
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I can hear a familiar refrained response rattling around in my head: "But <i>there are</i> some things that are just impossible." The most common example I hear is that Jesus was Jesus and we can't be like Jesus, that's impossible. I can imagine any number of other related arguments: it's impossible not to engage in war from time to time, and on and on. Well, the funny thing about this familiar refrain is that Jesus preemptively destroyed its power. "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect." "The student will do greater things than the teacher." "Abide in me, and I'll abide in you." "Go, and do likewise." For those who ignore Jesus's non-self-referential statements, it is easy to dismiss these as impossible, but then we are explicitly denying Jesus as real or otherwise and removing any meaning from our now defunct faith. Jesus called us to be like him and more and then promised to grant us the Holy Spirit, his own peace, his grace, in order to fulfill the call. To believe in Jesus as the Way, the Truth, the Life, the Son of God, is to necessarily also believe that he would not call us to what is impossible and instead make the impossible possible. "How can this be?" Mary asked. "With God, all things are possible." (By the way, I wrote a book along these lines: <i>Created Human Divinity: long subtitle</i>. Check it out) When in 2 Peter we read that we have been given God's great promises in order to be "partakers of the divine nature," we must then understand ourselves to indeed be partakers--in other words, cooperative, also having. <br />
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Perhaps we are afraid of what seems impossible and unrealistic. Or perhaps even we feel weak and powerless and inferior in the face of the impossible and unrealistic. Powerlessness and inferiority are not our friends, that's for sure. Yet, God's promise is to make the impossible possible through his majestic grace, by pouring out His Holy Spirit upon us, to make us like Jesus, partakers of the divine nature even, to fulfill the call and model Jesus set out for us. We must, then, in our personal lives, in our church lives, in our politics and in our advocacy, faithfully strive for and live into the radically unrealistic, the ideal. We must counter resistance with the words and life of Jesus, the ideal, the real, and we must never give up or lose hope. Only then is our faith at all real or realistic.John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-91441021373465821102019-09-09T14:01:00.001-07:002019-09-09T14:46:17.230-07:00What is Education For?It's hard not to reflect on the meaning of life cycles and transitions when you are experiencing them, personally or through your parents or kids. So in the past couple of years I've been reflecting on why we have, and why we should have (if we have), kids, in the year or so since my second son's birth. Now, with my oldest off to pre-school, I can't help but reflect on the meaning of education.<br />
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In the last few months I've read a number of articles on education, and seen a number of others that I haven't read, and what it's all about. A former professor of mine is, rightly, an advocate for liberal arts education, so whenever I stroll onto Facebook I have a good chance to see another article. Just today, on my own, I saw and read this one: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/09/student-debt-is-transforming-the-american-family?utm_source=pocket-newtab" target="_blank">Student Debt is Transforming the American Family</a>. That article is specifically about a book exploring the role and response to student debt that parents and students take on in search for the American dream, but it also hints that the students and others are questioning why anyone needs a higher education. Indeed, usually the arguments around education concern specifically higher education, or at least use higher education as a magnifying glass. Then the arguments usually proceed like this: to get a good job (credential), to be a well-rounded, thoughtful person (liberal arts), to be properly trained (STEM programs or technical), college is useless (price not worth the reward).<br />
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Generally I agree with the argument for a liberal arts higher education, but the cost is rather high, and even so the missing piece in much of the debate is what K-12 education--and pre-K, for that matter-- should look like. If the student debt debate leads to lower college attendance rates, then what we've spent decades arguing about will certainly trickle down into our high schools. Actually, that has already happened: technical schools for freshman to senior are no longer strange alternatives and some high schools, including my alma mater, have already placed a greater emphasis on STEM training. Some of that, perhaps, is an attempt to prepare students planning on attending STEM-based universities rather than preparing them for the job-market as STEM-trained, but the result is the same. Whether we've realized it or not, many schools are already adjusting and we need to reflect on whether they, and we, are adjusting appropriately. <br />
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Before I continue, I want to make clear that what I mean by STEM-training is not simply knowledge in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but advanced knowledge that could lead to an engineering occupation, for instance.<br />
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What I most think is missing from the our reflection is a theological and/or spiritual component. Who are we? And who are we meant to be? I'd love to answer those questions in full but at the moment I'll resign myself to pointing us to our creation stories, at least those in the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim tradition. In the second creation story, found in Genesis 2-3, God tells Adam and Eve not to partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. At the moment they do, paradise falls apart. Not for a second should we think that there is something inherently evil about knowledge. The story does not at all argue that we are not supposed to have knowledge. The meaning of the creation story is complex, but without question we should at least partly understand the story to mean that knowledge does not make us fully human as we were created to be. We can think, too, of the story of Job, at the end of which God comes out of the whirlwind and gives Job a pop quiz about creation and how all of creation works: "Tell me these things, if you have understanding. Surely you know!" Of course Job does not know. None of us do. So not only is knowledge not the goal of our created being but it simply can't be.<br />
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Instead, who we are and who we're meant to be must be understood in relation to the God who walks the Garden with us, and whose power and knowledge as found in creation must be left as a mystery. At some point, we must leave the accumulation of knowledge to God; or accept that no accumulation of knowledge can bring us to God. Faust knows all and loses his soul.<br />
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Who are we then? What is life about? And what should education be about if not the accumulation of knowledge? We are a people created to appreciate the mystery of beauty and the beauty of mystery, to share in the joy of divine life, and to work with our gifts toward restoring God's creation to its intended brilliance. If that is who we are as a people, then our education cannot be about preparing us to toil for a salary for the rest of our lives for no reason other than surviving. That isn't who we're meant to be. If we are to prepare our students for anything, it should be to appreciate the beauty and mystery of life and to find their vocation--what their spiritual selves are built for--for a life of meaningful social and personal work as far from pure toil as the sun is from the moon. Indeed, when God cursed Adam with toilsome work, it was in fact a curse. The opposite of toilsome work will bring us back to paradise, to heaven on earth, to the kingdom of God.<br />
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Education, then, aside from teaching the basics of mathematics, science, reading, history and the like, should focus on a prototypical liberal arts education from start to finish. Not just drawing but art history and trips to art museums; not just biology but plenty of time spent outside in the woods, watching the birds and animals; not just math but looking at sunflowers that bloom with a strange mathematical sequence, the Fibonacci sequence; not just the arbitrary study of poetry but the listening to it, the writing of poetry, the living of poetry; and et cetera. Planting flowers, service to the community, singing, exploring the universe physically and metaphysically, asking questions about the world and one another, meditation and soul-searching, team-building. These should be the hallmarks of education K-12. Many educators may say that these elements are already included, and usually that is true, but <i>including </i>these elements is different than highlighting them. Any personal and social meaning and well-being activity, lesson, or exploration should be highlighted from the start, to know how to be healthy personally and in community. Plus, I don't meant that we should apply knowledge. It's not all about application. The point is application to <i>being</i>.<br />
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We may say that such a radical change to our educational curriculum is impossible, too radical, and a detriment. The latter concern, that changing our educational program in the way I suggest would be a detriment, I hear and understand. There is no doubt that my vision for what education is for would result in less-educated students in the way we define the term "educated." On the national stage our concern is often that we are falling behind other countries in general and advanced knowledge. My plan would probably accelerate that process across the board. Fewer students would have a functional understanding of calculus, without question. But when I was a math student and a math tutor, the question I most heard was, "When am I ever going to use this?" Too often the truthful answer is, "never... unless you plan on studying or going into a field requiring mathematics." Usually my students would then grudgingly look at me as if to say, "I plan on studying theater, so..." Why teach our students advanced knowledge that they do not need? Why worry about overall educational attainment, as in knowledge, if eighty percent of it goes to waste? Let our kids focus on what will be used, on themselves, and ignore what won't be. If they want to study calculus, there is plenty of time for that and they can choose to do so, but we don't need to require students to take it simply because it is the next math class in the queue.<br />
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There are some pieces of knowledge that should be taught vigorously. Local history, to have an understanding of our neighbors and how not to repeat oppressive and unfortunate acts (in conjunction with how to be a good neighbor and how to build a good neighborhood), and an early introduction to languages, religion, and philosophy, to have an understanding of how many different ways there are to make sense of the world. That way, fitting into my program, kids would early on know there isn't only one way for them to explore personal and social meaning.<br />
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Besides, it is possible that my vision for education would actually increase advanced knowledge. If students are given a greater opportunity to explore themselves and their place in the community and world, then there is a chance that, in doing so, the student would indeed know their vocation at a much earlier age than eighteen. Then, rather than waiting for college to focus on a major, the student could focus on that area of study for years beforehand while still engaging mostly in personal and social development. Finding one's vocation means finding joy in work, rather than toil, and finding joy in work means that learning any necessary advanced knowledge will be easier. Changing our educational system towards vocational educational fulfillment rather than general educational fulfillment, which prepares students for any and all jobs, most of which will be toilsome, then allows for more meaningful and healthy work lives.<br />
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To address the concerns of the change being impossible or too radical, well, those are true. Not for a second do I believe anyone will read this and think we should seriously outline a strategic plan for instituting my educational program. Nor do I want anyone to. Another problem, too, is that shifting toward a vocational educational fulfillment system is not realistic when transitioned into the job market. When engaging the economy as it stands is necessary for our financial survival, and the economy as it stands is not geared for personal fulfillment, then our students would be in for a rude awakening given my educational vision.<br />
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What then am I writing this for? My hope is to convince parents to take a more active role in educating their children in ways they should be educated: to care for their soul, to explore the physical and metaphysical world, to read fascinating books, learn about one's neighbors, pray and meditate, et cetera. I don't necessarily mean that everyone should start homeschooling, though that is an option. I simply mean that we shouldn't leave all the educating to our schools because, again, what is more important? That our kids finish with a 4.0 GPA and go to the best college possible to receive an accredited degree for a high-paying job? Or that our kids grow up to love God, themselves, and all others in a meaningful, powerful way? If we could have both, then great, but if we have to choose, I think the latter is better. <br />
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Two stories to end this piece. When my oldest, Sebastian, was about ten months old, he had an activity cube with four 3-D shapes with their own holes in the side of the activity cube. He learned how to put the sphere in the right hole and I was quite proud. Then I realized he didn't learn much. He kept trying to push the other shapes into the sphere's hole and was frustrated when it didn't work. The shape is not what he learned. What he learned was only that shapes could fit into that hole. When I realized that, I turned to my wife and said, "I don't think he's very smart." My wife reminded me how unfair that statement was--Sebastian was only ten months old, after all. Then I realized that it was unfair for another reason: what do I care if he's a genius? In fact, as a parent, I'd rather he first learn from me how to love the people he shares this planet with than some shapes.<br />
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As a pastor, leading aging congregations, I often hear the lament of how and why children of active members don't also attend church. Those children went to Sunday School, they participated in worship, they were active in youth group, how did they end up deciding church isn't important? My insensitive but insightful response usually is to ask whether those children also saw their parents living a spiritual life. Did they worship privately as a family? Did they visibly thank God in good moments and pray for guidance in hard moments? Did they bring their kids along to mission and service projects? For the most part, parents keep their own faith isolated from children. What then happens is that the kids need to go to church to learn about God but are simultaneously learning that God has no import in one's own life, since they don't see in their parents. So then why would they go to church if it's only something interesting to have learned about?<br />
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Ultimately, as parents, we need to be the teachers of our kids. We need to teach our kids what is important and not leave it to schools or church or anything else. Professional educators, in my experience, are wonderfully caring, intelligent, and good at what they do. Unfortunately, though, professional educators are no substitute for instilling in our children what education is truly for. Part of the reason is that our educational system has been developed for the national good, or at least the national good has had a hand in crafting the system, rather than the personal good. Someone, then, needs to be worried about the personal good. I know we parents are worried about that for our kids, so let us take into our own hands, with the right vision, how to properly educate our kids. Education should be for the student, for his or her personal good, in relationship to God, creation, and all of God's creatures. Living a fulfilled life in and with God is what life is about, anyway. Let's make that happen.John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-11783487088015101922019-09-02T10:30:00.002-07:002019-09-02T10:30:40.351-07:00The Loving, Inherent Risk in Having KidsScroll down a few posts and you'll find another essay on kids and why we have them. For the past year and a half I've been preoccupied with that question. Hopefully in doing so I'm creating a foundation for my own sanity as well as yours, because here's another question parents surely wrestle with often, especially when fears are realized: what happens if my kid turns out to be awful? <br />
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Imagine the suffering the parents of mass murderers undergo when they learn that their kid just killed a bunch of people, often for either no good reason or hatred. No doubt the parents ask self-reflective questions about where they went wrong. Especially if there are other kids in the family that are in the running for peace prizes, the parents must be at a loss. "Didn't we raise them the same? What went wrong?" I bet that usually nothing went wrong. Every child has free-will and can, without warning, choose to commit a heinous act that nothing in our parenting, nothing in their childhood, and nothing they've ever been exposed to, could possibly have predicted. Yet the suffering of the parent is real. While I pray that parents are not driving themselves crazy worrying that their child may turn into a mass murderer, we almost certainly still have concerns about the child being awful, albeit with a lesser definition of 'awful.' So how do we parents deal with the suffering associated with such legitimate concern, and how do we do so theologically?<br />
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While I do not agree with much of Jurgen Moltmann's theological project, he does provide a fascinating understanding of the Trinity that unites the concepts 'God is love' and 'God suffers.' His <i>The Trinity and the Kingdom</i> contain most of these ideas, based in mystical Judaism's understanding of God's Shekinah being separated from God Himself in order to be present in God's creation. <br />
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Taking the assumption that God is love, we then say that love is "the voluntary laying oneself open to another and allowing oneself to be intimately affected by him; that is to say, the suffering of passionate love," and, further, "Love humiliates itself for the sake of the freedom of its counterpart." We can even say that "the sole omnipotence which God possesses is the almighty power of suffering love." God has suffering within God's self because God loves. Yet love cannot survive on its own, "Love has to give, for it is only in the act of giving that it truly possesses, and finds bliss." Here, then, is the kicker: "if God is already in eternity and in his very nature love, suffering love and self-sacrifice, then evil must already have come into existence with God himself, not merely with creation, let alone with the Fall of man." God then cannot possibly have created a world absent of suffering. To perhaps quote C.S. Lewis without having the quotation in front of me: to say something is possible that is actually impossible is to have said nothing at all. If God loves, God suffers in longing and desire for the other, and therefore God can only create a world with suffering. <br />
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As a summary: God is love, and because He loves God contains suffering <i>within </i>Himself. So, then, when God creates, there is inherent risk of continued suffering in the freedom of the creation. <br />
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Why is this important theologically? Moltmann has found a way to answer the question, "Why is there evil and suffering in the world?" without attributing the source either in a character flaw of God's or in one of God's creations. Usually the answer to the problem of pain, as C.S. Lewis puts it, rests either in indifference (God created and didn't care), in Satan/Devil (whom God created), or in humanity's free-will (whom God created). The first answer seems incompatible with a God of love and can therefore be rejected. The second two, however, raise more questions than answers. If Satan/Devil is the source of evil and suffering, why did God create an evil being? Whether God created this evil being or not, blaming Satan/Devil then sets up a near heretical battle between good and evil <i>in which God seems unable to conquer</i>. How many thousands of years have humans lived on this planet and God has yet to conquer? That answer seems a reject, too. If humanity's free-will is to blame, then again we have questions. Couldn't God intervene more often? Why does God allow so much suffering? What about natural disasters? While our free will is a common answer to the problem it is not without its own problems. Instead, Moltmann cleverly skirts all these issues and answers that suffering exists precisely because God <i>does not want </i>suffering. God loves, though, and so God suffers; and it is in that suffering love that creation happened. It is not that God created evil and suffering or allows them, but evil and suffering entered the world naturally in the act of creation by a God who loves. Creation does not exist without suffering and vice versa. Thinking this way then easily explains the Trinity: God created and part of God lived in the world taking on the suffering, and in the suffering almost becomes distant to the Creator God, enough, certainly, to explain distinctive 'persons.' Love is shown not in the absence of suffering but in part of God's self, the Son, glorifying the suffering.<br />
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There is then an inherent risk in creating, <i>especially</i> if the creating act is done out of love. Here is where Moltmann's understanding of love and creation become important for us: it is because we love that we continue the creative act begun by God. If we did not love, then surely we'd say that the world is too dark and horrible to create life. How could we not? Yet we love, and so we create. It is with the same love of God, though perhaps to a smaller degree, that we bring new life into the world. Love must give, love must share, love cannot live alone. When given the opportunity, then, love creates. Yet doing so brings inherent risk because love contains suffering.<br />
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Even so, I cannot imagine God sitting around before time thinking, "Should I create? If I do, there will be suffering. Not because I want it, not because I'll create suffering, but because I create, there will be. Should I create anyway?" Not to detract from God's own freedom (as Moltmann would, and therefore I think he's wrong), but if indeed God is love then the answer to God's own hypothetical-surely-didn't-happen question is that of course God should create anyway, risk and all. Yes, God knew that one of his creatures would soon brutally murder his own brother, or at least God knew that it was a possibility. Still, God created. Yes, God knew, or at least knew the possibility, that very soon eleven of his creatures would throw their brother into a pit and later sell him into slavery. Yes, God knew, or at least he knew the possibility, that His chosen righteous people would suffer many generations in slavery. Still and still, God created. Knowing His own self, God could have said, "I don't want my creatures to experience suffering as I do in my love," but God could not hold back from sharing love and its consequent peace and joy. Knowing the risk, the divine host still sang songs of praise at creation.<br />
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We, too, as parents or prospective parents, must know there is inherent risk in creating because of our love which in itself brings suffering into the world. Conceiving new life itself brings suffering into the world. There's nothing we can do about it. Thankfully, this means that we should let ourselves off the hook. Our lives and parenting will an affect on how our kids 'turn out' but who we are and how we raise them won't be the end of the story. We can steer our kids away from all violence and they still become violence; we can steer our kids away from having dreams and they still become an Olympic athlete. Who knows? I surely don't know how it works. As God says to Job in the whirlwind, "Do you know all these things? Tell me. Surely you do." And Job must remain silent. We do not know how to maximize joy in the lives of our kids except to love them, and in that love there may then be unexplained suffering and pain. None of it is necessarily our fault. We can't keep our kids from all suffering nor can we prevent them from causing suffering in others. That suffering exists by nature because we created in love. We can stop worrying about whether our kids turns out awful or not or experiences a lot of suffering. Instead we can focus on our relationship and the presence of love.<br />
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But just as God was bold enough to take the risk in order to share love, so, too, should we be bold enough. The greater the love, the greater the risk. God's suffering present in the risk led to God's suffering on the cross. Our love will bolster us to undergo suffering for our love, too, to maximize joy in the loves of those we create out of love in order to share love. <br />
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Most of all, though, whatever happens in your relationship with your child, God gets it. The very nature of God, the Trinity, understands. You will suffer as a parent, you will suffer for your child, and hopefully you will praise in great joy with your child. Whatever happens, God is right there with you, because God who is love created.John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-52290793824741895842019-06-29T16:10:00.000-07:002019-06-29T16:10:06.714-07:00Christians and the Future with Global Climate ChangeThroughout Christian history, official theologians--whatever I mean by that--as well as the common person have often reasoned using a "God of the gaps" logical method. As in, "We can't explain or imagine how this could be, unless God..." William Paley's 'Clock Maker' analogy to counter the then growing momentum of evolutionary theory is the classic example: eyes and other parts of animal bodily function are simply too complex to imagine developing without a maker, like a clock is simply too complex to imagine without a clock maker. Paley, accidentally, proved the follies of backward and unimaginative thinking, especially for religious persons. When a "God of the gaps" is debunked, as it regularly has been, religious persons who hold such theology are put in the awkward position of either rejecting their God or rejecting reality (both of which, as far as I'm concerned, are the same). Yet despite the routine defeat of the "God of the gaps," of backward and unimaginative thinking, Christians and perhaps persons of other religions still, on the whole, haven't learned the lesson. We still reason, discern, decide and act based only on what we know and not on what is unknown <i>but could be</i>.<br />
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I'll get around to the environment and global climate change, but I think this is a grand opportunity to bring up a pet thought experiment of mine: what if there are aliens? What will Christians do then? After centuries of claiming that God created our world and we humans specially, if people from some faraway galaxy who don't look at all like us show up, then I imagine that most people will choose one of three options: 1) the world is ending because the aliens are going to attack us and it will look like Revelation; 2) the Bible must be wrong, so God must be wrong; 3) rapidly scramble to invent some other theology and look, rightfully, terribly silly to the rest of the world. None of those options are great. It would be better to instead create a theology now that incorporates the possibility of other intelligent lifeforms in the universe. Otherwise we'd be left with a classic no-good-terrible choice. If developing a theology that thinks ahead to incorporate the possibility of aliens sounds like a compromise, well, it's certainly not as much a compromise as rapidly scrambling if an alien were to greet us. So as not to risk the rejection of God or the rejection of reality, we shouldn't reason, discern, decide and act only on what we know now but should instead reason, discern, decide and act in ways that also incorporate the unknown and what could be.<br />
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This brings us to the inimitable problem of global climate change. Of course, there are those who still deny the severity of the problem or even that it exists. Doing so is, logically and frankly, silly. If we're concerned about jobs, then combating the problem will simply transfer jobs from one set of industries to another set; and the risk of not combating the problem is great. If the danger is as great as scientists say, then my three and one-year olds are entirely screwed. If the scientists are right, it is the greatest problem and threat to human existence. Why not look ahead to the problem now? Indeed, why didn't we look ahead to possible damage of the environment generations ago?<br />
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As Christians it seems we have taught the world that what is, is good and will last forever, and what is not, is bad and won't ever come. If those are the conditions under which we reason, discern, decide and act, then we needn't ever plan for harmful consequences. We can roll out new technologies with great expectations for increased production and luxury but without worry about any possible footprint. Carson's <i>The Silent Spring</i> and the so-called revolution it sprang don't seem to have dented prevailing modes of thought. Yet because of Carson's work and the now unanimous scientific record on global climate change, we know that we should have known better. Any time we introduce into nature a chemical or gas that is unnatural, non-native, or in higher quantities than nature typically produces, we should stop and think far longer than we ever have. To you and me that probably seems commonsense now but it wasn't before. Still, though, we should have known better. Of course, we didn't know better, because we were and are operating under a false mode of reasoning, discerning, deciding and acting. The weight of Christian theology and living for the past two thousand years has convinced us that it's impossible to know better except in hindsight. Because we've hidden behind bad theology and reasoning, we're now in a dreadful state. "We should have known better" can't help us now. <br />
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Regardless, I have hope. The reason for my hope may sound rather pessimistic to you, however, so prepare yourself. I have hope because of a clever story by Isaac Asimov, "Night." Asimov's story is of a people who have never experienced night because of their three suns but now, for the first time in hundreds and hundreds of years, all three suns will set at the same time and there will be night. It's the end of the world!... or so the people think. Thus, naturally, most people descend into chaos. One scientist, however, has been doing his research and discovers that, actually, this is not the first time a developed civilization on that spot has experienced a night. That previous civilization--and perhaps there were more than one--also descended into chaos thinking that the world was ending. The scientist's discovery, of course, proves that night is not the end of the world and the people should instead plan for ways to endure the night and come out the other side intact. Like with most other things he wrote, Asimov's story is brilliant. It's also relevant. There are people out there, myself included, who believe, with some supporting evidence, that developed civilization appeared prior to the last ice age. The Sphinx in Egypt, for instance, could date to many years prior. Unfortunately, we are too obsessed with one of two story lines to accept such a dating: either we believe that humans have progressed over time and that we, right now, are the height of human progress, and therefore everything before now must have been worse, making the Sphinx and other similar buildings and sites a great mystery; or we mostly agree with the first argument but can't deny the existence of certain structures and, therefore, there must have been aliens. Both are ridiculous. Humans have always been humans and thus capable of great things. <br />
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All of this is important, while possibly sounding crazy to some, because whether the alternative history of the Sphinx and human civilization is correct--that, because humans are wonderful creatures, we could have developed civilizations in an advanced way with advanced knowledge well before our history books, which deny human greatness, tell us, possibly even prior to the last ice age--we are on the brink of destroying ourselves again. If you've ever seen the movie, <i>The Day After Tomorrow</i>, you should know that the science present in that movie is accurate. Indeed it is possible that the climate change so much, particularly if our oceans warm, that certain climate functions simply cease and the Earth responds with a massive counterattack. As the movie hints at, there is evidence that is how the last ice age began, suddenly and ferociously. Suddenly and ferociously enough that most signs of civilization would disappear. Again, whether any of this is correct or not, we are on the brink of destroying ourselves and we are ignoring the danger. Whether an ice age suddenly destroys us or if we gradually come to be living in a desert, but only realize it at the last second, it seems to me that we won't have much time to react before our night begins. Yet part of the reason I've come to believe in an alternative history of humanity that respects our potential as creatures is that we can then use Asimov's story as a source of hope: yes, we will destroy ourselves, but we can leave notes and traces behind so that future scientists can discover what we've done and experienced and do better the next time around; to analyze what went wrong and develop technology and 'progress' harmoniously with our environment. Our night is not far away, we are not responding quickly enough, but we can start preparing for the future beyond.<br />
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I thank shows like <i>Ancient Aliens</i> and other related 'alternative' history programs for reminding us of the type of technology that past civilizations have used. Obviously, we could all do without the assumption that humans are and were not capable of advanced knowledge and techniques, including a spiritual and intellectual connection to nature to discover the places with strange phenomenon. We need not assume that aliens must have created a star gate in those places or handed down knowledge because we humans are amazing and spiritual beings. Instead we can simply admire in awe what we've done and try hard to learn from our past accomplishments. <br />
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Learning from our past accomplishments, rather than merely gawking at them as unsolvable mysteries or the work of aliens, would teach us that the Egyptians and other civilizations hardly ever built anything grand and awesome, from the pyramids around the world to Stonehenge to the Sphinx to Pumapunku, without some nod to deep natural knowledge. Spirituality often also plays a major role at these places, thus tying together nature and spirit, the body and soul. There also exists evidence that many ancient structures and techniques were intended either to produce zero impact energy or connect us to or remind us of the natural electronic and life-giving energy present on our amazing planet. Whether any ancient structures or techniques were ever able to harness natural energy or not almost doesn't matter. What matters is the clear intention to use what already exists rather than producing anew. What matters is the clear intention to preserve and enhance our relationship with the environment that gives us life. <br />
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Let's say that we have progressed in knowledge as well as technology since the ancients. If that is the case, then obviously what might have been out of reach for ancient Egyptians, of actually harnessing real energy from the planet without damaging it at the same time, should now be within reach. At the very least, we can promise future civilizations, after our planet has reset and we humans are hopefully still alive but in a reduced state and can discover our notes and traces, that indeed they can and will develop technology capable of producing energy without harming the environment. Of course, past humans may have tried the same, if I'm right about things, and future humans may not care what we have to say to them. I can imagine our future selves saying, "Well, no worries, we can use coal-powered factory plants because we'll do so in moderation and not destroy the planet," a hundred years before things get well out of hand. Still, if our future selves are able to put human history in perspective by looking back at us, then waiting a couple of hundred years before using energy-producing technology or chemicals of any kind might not be that big of a deal. They might be convinced to wait in order to ensure longevity rather than short-term gain.<br />
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No one can predict what someone else will do, obviously, especially given a different background, but leaving behind notes and traces of what we've done and what should be done to avoid our fate would at least give our future selves a chance. If we are unable to protect ourselves, as looks more and more likely, by living in greater harmony with our planet and our spiritual nature, then we at least need to help future civilizations make that a fixture of society. Civilization cannot long continue ignoring our human spirituality or our natural connection to our environment.<br />
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Where do Christians come back into the story? Well, let's first acknowledge that faith in Christ may not survive the destruction of our planet because that destruction will be associated with Christianity. Our way of doing theology has been so poor that it has led us to believing that God created the world for us that we might use it however we want no matter what. We have long misinterpreted the "dominion" and "subdue" in our creation story. Those words, as well as the general tone and meaning of Genesis 1-3, actually command that we care for the earth as it was created, that we take on the role of co-creators with God to <i>maintain</i> and <i>sustain</i> the beauty and abundance of our world rather than plunder it for our own gain. Hence, while many complain that the Hollywood movie <i>Noah</i>, with Russell Crowe, is not biblically correct, it actually is in many ways that we have since forgotten (not to mention that it follows the Book of Enoch rather closely). <br />
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Having acknowledged our theological and practical wrongdoing, Christians must begin doing theology a new way and be the voice of Creation reasoning. Simultaneously we must incorporate the unknown and mysterious into how we reason, discern, decide and act, acknowledging that our God Three-in-one is a mystery and has always asked us to be okay with mystery (think of Job, especially, but also the creation story itself), as well as use that theological grounding to strongly teach, remind, and encourage our fellow journeyers that we humans and the world around us are capable of great things--and capable of great destruction. <br />
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Christians are perhaps best poised to fill this role of modeling and encouraging harmonious environmental living that is spiritual and life-giving in every way. When we don't misinterpret our creation story, we see that God's creation plays a central role in our relationship with God throughout the Bible. Sinful acts have consequences for nature as well, often with the earth crying out; on the other hand, the earth participates in salvation as well. We believe that what God created was created so that we might have a divine space in and on which we could walk with God. Our faith is not the only one that calls for a bond between human and earth but it is the only one, as far as I know, that suggests the bond should be central to who we are and how we relate to the divine <i>as well as</i> encouraging a striving with the divine. Whereas Buddhism, and other faiths, does teach living harmoniously with the environment, it does not also teach that our inclination to strive forward is good. Buddhism instead teaches an emptying. Christianity could learn a lot from Buddhism, and indeed the two faiths are more similar at their core than many adherents realize, but Christianity acknowledges that at the core of our soul is a desire to strive. What our faith intends to do is channel that desire into holiness and away from mere ambition. That channeling becomes critical in our relationship to energy and the planet: ambition focuses on extraction and production, while holy striving focuses on growing in tandem.<br />
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Unfortunately there is little hope for us in the next hundred or so years, but we hold out hope and faith that it is possible to grow in tandem with the world created for and around us and with one another. Christians are well poised, if we change how we reason, discern, decide and act, to be the people that lead the way. We can, in a far off future that we must start planning for, encourage technological progress but with greater reflection and a different focus. And if we Christians are unable to be that people, then I hope and pray that the majority of people will remember, through collective memory and any notes and traces we leave behind, that future civilizations live and act more reflectively, spiritually, and with the unknown constantly in mind.John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-50136463083373734822019-06-27T11:24:00.003-07:002019-06-27T11:24:59.372-07:00Why Have Kids?Even before my second son, Soren, was born, I questioned whether I'd have the mental fortitude to survive another infancy. Worrying about my wife undergoing labor again, and having to watch it, made her growing belly a nightmare. Then, when Soren was born, I almost instantly experienced post-partum depression and didn't let go for about six months. Yes, men can also experience post-partum depression. The only escape for me came in the form of a question, "Why did I have this child?" By asking the question I learned a lot.<br />
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I learned a lot about myself, of course, but I also learned that each and every prospective parent should ask themselves, "Why do I want to have kids?" before seriously considering having one. On the flip side, every person who doesn't want kids should ask themselves the opposite question before making an almost equally irreversible decision. Our answers to the questions will invariably vary but, I wager, each will point to our understanding of what life is about.<br />
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That is, as long as we don't answer, "I've always wanted kids," or, "I think I'll be a good parent." While these may be serious and relevant answers they cannot be the entire story. I think I'd make a good professional cyclist, but would I have been willing, and am I now willing, to put in the constant over-exerting work necessary to become an endurance athlete? Doubtful. As is true about being a professional cyclist, there is much more to being a parent than idealistic perspectives of ourselves. Parenting is not about the parent but about the kid/s. Our answer to the question, "Why do I want to have kids?" should be rooted in the yet conceived child's life. If the answer is instead rooted in ourselves, then moments of difficulty parenting will also turn back on ourselves and our energy and patience will be sapped; if parenting is about ourselves, then we'll want to give up when it's no longer convenient, but if parenting is about the kid, then we'll be more likely to keep going when they're trouble. <br />
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When we think about our kids in asking why we want to have kids, it's unlikely that the reason will be, "So I can love them,"
because, again, that has more to do with you. Reasons like this tend to reveal your own issues rather than any meaningful foundation for parenting. If you need someone to love, or someone to love you, then that should be worked out prior to conception. Asking, expecting, hoping, or demanding a child to be an object or giver of love severely limits the life and purpose of the child. Therefore, again, bringing a new life into
this world should not focus on you or the lives that already exist. Our reasons for giving life should focus on the new life and what may be in store for the child.<br />
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Unfortunately, too often it seems that many decide to have kids without reflecting on why or having a proper, child-centered reason. I count myself in that category. In that situation, the parent has no foundation on which to raise the child and endure the hardships other than pure determination. "I am a good parent, I will do this," become the mantras but without any 'because' or 'for the sake of' to replenish the energy bucket. For many, determination and willpower are enough. For some, however, determination and willpower are not nearly enough, and what happens then? For me and my youngest, I couldn't stand being around him for a long time, and yet I had to be the one to put him to sleep and I came to resent holding him for bedtime. To some extent, I still do resent holding him, almost a year after I recovered from my depression. If my spouse weren't as strong as she is and if I hadn't gone to therapy, I wonder what might have happened. I wonder what would now happen. I wonder if we might have ended up where some other families do, with parents' shutting down and losing interest or divorcing, or worse. <br />
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Now, there are a great many reasons why parents struggle and develop post-partum depression, including the simple but intense unavoidable chemical reason, that asking and reflecting on the question why we want to have kids won't fix. The question and process of answering is not a cure-all. But if we seriously ask and reflect on the question why we want to have kids, and root the answer in the prospective child's life, then the answer will almost certainly provide us a lasting foundation on which to return and replenish our reserves when parenting. Our answer to the question will provide a dream, a meaning, toward which we can constantly strive on the child's behalf. The answer will also help us relax in moments of crisis because we can put things in proper perspective. Not only will our answer to why we want to have kids provide a foundation, a meaning, and means to peace, but it will almost certainly also reveal our understanding of what life is about.<br />
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For instance, my answer, six months after child two was born, came to be, "To share the good gift of life that God has given us to enjoy and share with God in His divine presence." If you're not religious, this probably won't be your answer, but in my answer you can see that I understand the purpose of life to be enjoying the life God has given us. In that sense, your answer probably won't be all that different. You, too, will probably mention a desire for your kids to share in the joys of life or very similar reason. Given such a foundation, when the child is a total wreck and all you want to do is run away from your kids, you can remember that the child isn't around for your benefit in the first place but because you wanted to share the goodness of life with another. Then, you don't need to make the child's problems go away, you don't need to ratchet up your anxiety with every meltdown, but instead you can simply do your best to teach the child how to see what is good, how to laugh, how to play well, and et cetera. If the child still chooses not to listen, you as parent can step back and differentiate some because your reason for having the child was to give the child a chance to enjoy life. Ultimately that is the child's choice. <br />
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While I have nothing against helicopter parents, I wonder if indeed part of the anxiety there is an inability to differentiate ourselves from our child. The child's problems are ours. The same goes for parents who live their dreams through their children. Then, when all comes crashing down, we run to the opposite extreme of complete differentiation and indifference: "They let me down. They're impossible. They don't listen to me." But there is a middle ground of teaching, modeling, living and laughing without becoming upset if the child doesn't want to play soccer, and instead chooses chess, or doesn't want to learn challenging things, and instead wants to have tea parties. It seems to me that such a middle ground is only possible when we have grounded our reason for having and loving the child in the child's own opportunity to enjoy life and find his/her own meaning. The parent must have a desire to lead the child to the river of goodness and not also force the child to chug the water. The parent must have a clear understanding of what life is about so that they can hope and pray to share, teach, and model that life with others.<br />
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For a lot of people, they may have a clear understanding of what life is about but feel incapable of raising a child into that life. If life is about some form of enjoyment, and you're certain that your family will suffer hardship after hardship to survive, then should you have kids? Well, I can't say, "no," that's not my place. Many families, especially those who provide their own food and supplies, are often better off having children. My only point is that we should ask ourselves the question as seriously and prayerfully as possible.<br />
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With that said, I recently had a conversation with a couple planning to move to better chase their dreams and what they find meaningful in life. As they were talking, the wife said, "We'll probably never have kids. I know that sounds strange." I felt bad for her and other wives (husbands, too, but especially wives) not planning on having kids. There is a constant need to explain away such a 'strange' comment, as my friend immediately set about doing. But as I told her, the reason for having or not having kids should be well articulated and thought out and, if it is, then well and good. Her reason was indeed good, that they have had to scrape and fight for all that they have and, with the work they hope to do, their schedules would make it impossible to give a life to their child that they would hope for any child. Others may simply say that they prefer a life of luxury and travel and wouldn't want a child to interrupt their fun. That's not quite as good a reason but it's still a reason. If you'd only ever resent your child for derailing your life, then don't have a child. We should be able to leave room for those who wisely acknowledge that the parent and/or the child would be miserable and not able to fully enjoy life. Responding, "Oh, but you'd make such a good mother!" is, first of all, an often not reflected upon enough comment to realize its untruth, and, secondly, a ridiculous thing to say to someone who is essentially saying, "I'd be unable to provide for a child what I think should be provided." Such a person deserves our support, not terrible cliches. Or, more exactly, such a person deserves our respect for honestly and deeply thinking about the welfare of the child. The only way we can more properly respect those deciding not to have kids and leave room for them to make such a decision, without their feeling the need to constantly explain themselves, is if all of us stop assuming that having kids is an automatic part of life.<br />
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If we want having kids to be an automatic part of life for everyone, and want to continue saying, "Oh, but you'd be a great parent, and I want grandkids!" then we should think about ways to improve our communities and world. Again, the reason for having kids will undoubtedly be associated with what life is about but the promises of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," of equality and justice, of love and peace, of hope, well, those promises are inevitably out of reach for many in our world today. In fact, it is probably not an overstatement to say that those promises have been out of reach for some at every stage of human history. We've had 'civilization' for about four thousand years, the revelations of God (through the Hebrews and Jewish people) for almost as long if not longer, and still many millions cannot guarantee to their children anything other than a life of starvation, migration, homelessness, extreme poverty, and misery. Why have kids in that case, when the goodness of life is nearly impossible to grasp? To bring them into such a world? Because a loving God said we should procreate as a command, as a reason for marriage? We in the privileged West like to look to third-world communities and say, "Boy, I've never met anyone so happy," and think that all is fine after all, but I, for one, cannot imagine that a loving God could command ignorance or inactivity when the scales of hope and contentment are so twisted; nor can I imagine a loving God commanding procreation into misery and at all costs. No, if we want life and more life, then we as a society need to work harder making the foundations for life and survival more easily accessible.<br />
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After all, life is not about amassing as much material good as possible. The atrocious inequality of power and material goods should therefore have no place in the question of why one should have kids so that each and every prospective parent can simply focus on the emotional and spiritual answer.<br />
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<br />John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-51871091999688349452019-05-02T09:05:00.003-07:002019-05-02T09:05:49.627-07:00The Democratic Primary: Why Vote at All?One of the most ridiculous parts of our so-called democracy today is that campaigns for elections begin nearly two years before the elections, so it feels like we are in full swing for the Democratic primary for the 2020 election even though it is still far off. This is even more true with Joe Biden recently declaring himself a candidate. Let's put that to the side for now, however, because I want to focus on a statement I've heard a lot from Democrats or anti-Trump folks: We need a viable candidate to beat Trump. Since we do seem to be in full campaign mode already, now is as good a time as any to address that statement and sentiment.<br />
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To respond to the supposed need for a viable candidate to beat Trump, we should first ask why we Americans vote at all. Many in my generation do not feel like voting is useful or meaningful. There are good reasons for that, whatever older folk may say. The democratic process has certainly been inundated with outside forces: Russia, oversized corporate influence, politicians' wanting money for re-election campaigns, and on and on. All of these forces have weakened the ideal above other ideals that our country, and the very nature of democracy and republics, was founded on: the right to self-determine. It is the right to self-determine that liberty and freedom describe. Our country was founded on this right to self-determine.<br />
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Even Christians, who should have a far more complicated relationship with government and voting than we currently do, hold the right to self-determine as part of God's relationship with us and why God created us in the first place. Adam and Eve were given the right to choose. They chose poorly, of course, but were still given that right. After the Flood God confirmed that self-determination is His intention for His created people. Abraham and Moses argued with God and changed God's mind. 1 Samuel 8, which describes how the Israelites again chose poorly by desiring a king other than God (hence why we should have a far more complicated relationship with government and voting than we do), includes God's affirming that we have the right to self-determine. God didn't want the Israelites to go down the path of forming a government but, in the end, God gave the Israelites what they wanted. <br />
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Self-determination is not merely a right. It is foundational to who we have been created to be. Of course, the foundational characteristic of self-determination should mostly be concerned with our faith and relationship to God/Christ, but that faithful relationship should pervade all of our lives, including our involvement (or not) in government. We vote, then, because we have this right, because we are meant to self-determine. Our vote is one of the means by which we self-determine.<br />
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If self-determination is the purpose of our individual vote, then we can connect the problem with the sentiment of viability for a party candidate with the history of who we have given the vote to. Most Americans don't give much thought any more to the fact that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens but do not have electoral college votes nor representation in Congress. Indeed, Puerto Ricans' representation in Congress is exactly the same as the colonists' representation in London's Parliament: someone is elected to be present with a voice but that person has no vote, no actual say, no ability to self-determine. The same is true with our other territories. It's even funny that we portrayed ourselves as a liberating force in World War II when we took over the Philippines from the Japanese when, in fact, we already controlled the Philippines beforehand. Or look at how the media and the Commission on Presidential Debates handled third-party candidates in 2016. The polling number needed to get on the televised debate stage was raised when it was clear that Johnson, of the Libertarian Party, was polling near the old, lower required numbers. Or look at how the media and especially those with political power have handled and portrayed the March for Our Lives campaign. Or look at the fact that Hillary Clinton was not far different from Trump leading up the primary until Bernie Sanders forced her to change her hand, which was all strange considering Bernie was pushed aside. Bernie himself admitted that the reason he didn't run as an independent is because if he did he wouldn't have had as much media exposure or a chance to debate. <br />
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The truth is that we don't want to share the right to vote, and therefore the right to self-determine, with anyone that we think might be outside an acceptable range. Hispanics? Asians? So what if they are <i>technically</i> citizens, they can't have the same right to self-determine, even if we have to put them in the same position we Americans we were in when we declared, "No taxation without representation," and launched a revolution on the grounds of liberty and freedom. Kids who want to take our guns away? Radical independents? Third-parties that don't fit into the Republican/Democrat range? No, thank you. Notice, too, that I'm only referring to our very recent history. Despite our ideals and the reason for revolution, we began disenfranchising people from the right to self-determine from our beginning. Apparently the right to self-determine only applies to those who look like us and think like us within an acceptable range. (By the way, the same is true for citizens of other countries, too. Cambodians, Vietnamese, El Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans, etc. shouldn't have the right to self-determine unless they are choosing what we, the powerful United States of America, want them to choose)<br />
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Obviously the problem with how we have treated the right to self-determine, and therefore the right to vote, and the entire related process, ignores the basic logic that the right to self-determine is the right to self-determine. If there is going to be an accepted range within which we coerce people to choose, that range should only exclude what is outright evil, as in we should not be able to vote for the extermination of all brown-haired people. Otherwise, by limiting the right to self-determine we thereby become shamefully elitist--only certain people have this right--and hypocritical while proving that we don't actually believe in our founding principles. <br />
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More than that, we prove that we don't believe in redemption if we limit the right to self-determine. Australia was peopled almost entirely by criminals (again of course ignoring the natives) and they seem to have turned out fine. Yet many nowadays do not think that criminals should have the right to self-determine, to vote? Yet many nowadays think that it is good and right for us to intervene in other countries' business, as if they'll fail without us? If one group of people are capable of self-determining well, then all are. <br />
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Put all of this together and we have reason not to care about the viability of candidates to win an election when we vote. To even talk about viability is to again become shamefully elitist and hypocritical, especially because it is usually the powerful, including the media, who make such determinations of viability. The media have portrayed Biden as the most likely to beat Trump even before Biden announced his campaign. But what if he's not the best candidate? What if Biden only gives us, in policy terms, nearly more of the same except without all of Trump's character flaws? Would that still be good? Both Bernie and Biden both mentioned as reasons for running the fact that, when they looked around the candidate pool, no one seemed as likely to beat Trump than themselves. But such thinking is wrong. If people have the right to self-determine, then they should be able to vote for the candidate that best represents their views and not be coerced into choosing someone merely for the sake of winning.<br />
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True, if we give people the right to self-determine, they may choose a candidate or policies that we dislike; they may choose a candidate or policies incapable of winning. But if we return to the Bible and the fact of our foundational character of self-determination, we'll remind ourselves that often we have chosen poorly. And that's okay. Adam and Eve and on down the line faced heavy consequences for choosing poorly but God still did not remove the right to self-determine. So, too, may we continue to face heavy consequences for choosing poorly, but we cannot remove the right to self-determine. <br />
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What is strange in all of this is that most of the candidates in the Democratic primary who are most radically different, policy-wise, from Trump are the ones who are most blacked out in the media. If beating Trump is the only goal--which is a faulty goal--then shouldn't a candidate be chosen who is unlike Trump? I think of Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth Warren. Regardless, the truth is that if Democrats, or anyone else, concern themselves with viability and winning elections, we are therefore refusing to self-determine or refusing others the right to self-determine. We'd instead simply be narrowing the acceptable range of electability and action. I fear for this country if that's what the Democrats decide to do.<br />
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All we should be doing in the political process, as in life generally, is asking ourselves, "What is it that I believe? And what personal actions and who else will make those beliefs a tangible reality in the world around me?" That's it. Self-determine. John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-37229374396197043522019-03-20T10:15:00.001-07:002019-03-20T10:15:12.201-07:00The Real Damage of PornographyConfession to and with another human being, or a few, is one of the healthiest habits a person can have. I've made this confession in public before and do so again: I am a pornography addict. Like a drug addict, though, I'm in recovery and could receive, if there were such a thing, a sobriety pin of a long while. Still, it's a real and constant temptation. I make this confession to you, my dear reader, because I want to talk about the real damage of pornography in a personal way.<br />
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As I talk about the real damage of pornography I want to make clear that I do not agree with the common attacks on pornography. Often I hear that pornography is inherently evil and therefore should be banned or that pornography inherently degrades the personhood and worth of those involved, and other related arguments. Personally I believe that the former is wrong, even ridiculous, and the latter, while partially true, misses the point. Sex is a good gift from God--or evolution, depending on our perspective--and should be celebrated. Therefore, pornography cannot be inherently bad because it can be a celebration of sex and the pleasure we receive. God cannot possibly want us to go through life avoiding all possible pleasure and joy. Pornography (let's remember that pornography can still come in forms other than videos) can or could be, when used properly, encourage a guilt and fear-free exploration of the good gift we have from God. Likewise, then, pornography does not inherently degrade anyone. <br />
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Pornography can, however, degrade persons. It does so in two ways. The first I've chronicled elsewhere, in my book particularly, and so will only briefly mention. While most pornographic actors do choose their occupation and the scenes in which they perform, and most enjoy the work they do, scenes containing what we might call the "degrading acts" pay more. If a pornographic actor absolutely depends on income from pornography scenes, then is it still a choice to perform in those degrading scenes? As I've contemplated various options for myself as a pastor, I've had this question about being a congregational pastor: if I depend on the income the church pays me, and they can fire me at any time, do I really have a choice in whether I prophesy to them? A choice between struggling financially or doing something you don't much like, well, I think we know what most of us would do, and it is therefore not much of a choice.<br />
<br />
The other, worse form of degradation, though, comes in how we interact with one another having been exposed to pornography. In other words, pornography itself is not wrong or degrading but our reaction to and formation as people from watching or reading is, or can be, degrading. Without using names or, hopefully, any indicative information about others, let me tell three quick stories to illustrate.<br />
<br />
A church girl I knew had a crush on me. She came from a somewhat troubled background. Up to that point in my life I was known to have a straight-edge approach to life, devoted to God alone. This girl clearly wanted to date me and expressed that she'd do anything to make that happen because she looked up to me, my faith, and my life. I then had the opportunity to help lift her out of the life she knew and was exposed to and show her what a good, faithful life looked like. Instead, I saw the chance to take advantage of her and play out some things I had seen in pornographic videos. Thankfully, I never acted on any of it, but the damage was done. After her experience with me, she was taught that all men, even the ones that seem to be holy and faithful, want only one thing. Indeed, one of her last communications to me was that I taught her a lot: that if she wants to please a man and find a good man to date and live with, she should be willing to stretch the boundaries of what she's comfortable with.<br />
<br />
Another girl I knew was herself from a solid background and was a solid person, believing in God. Unfortunately, her lifestyle often resulted in being an outsider of sorts, because rather than being "cool" or concentrating on partying, she tried to do good in the world and study well for a good future. At the age we were at that time, she was therefore not popular. I could relate. I myself was an outsider and considered strange for my faith and uncompromising dedication to what is good rather than cool. Somehow I was able to make my outsiderness popular, however, so I didn't have to deal with the daily frustrations she did. Because of that, this girl saw in me a wonderful opportunity: a good man with his priorities straight. So she excitedly started hanging out with me. Unfortunately, I took that opportunity to almost force myself on her. From then on I tried convincing her that we should "fool around." Again, I had a wonderful opportunity. Here I could have shown this girl who felt alone in her faith and her principles that she was not alone after all. Instead I wanted to play out what I thought every girl really wanted deep down because of the videos I had seen, or at the least what I wanted to experience; thinking that, in my position of power over here, I could make it happen.<br />
<br />
While in college, a friend of mine from New Jersey received a random text from a girl. What we think happened was that she was sending texts to random NJ numbers hoping that someone, somewhere, would respond. Clearly, as she later said, she was in need of a friend. She was contemplating suicide for a variety of reasons but also because her boyfriend had just broken up with her. My friend did not want to talk to a complete stranger so instead I did. The more we talked, the more I realized I, again, had a position of power: she needed me. Though I never intended to see her in real life I used that opportunity to provide her with comfort but only if she would talk through the various scenes I wanted to try out from having watched pornography. By the time I came to my senses, she said she'd contemplate suicide again if I broke things off with her. Instead of being the friend she really needed, I used her.<br />
<br />
These stories are all, essentially, the same. They are also not the only instances of my living out these story archetypes. What these stories hopefully show is that the real danger and damage of pornography is in how we seek to incorporate what we see or hear into our lives. Life imitates art, as Oscar Wilde says. In a way, that is not inherently bad. Again, sex is God's good gift. If there are certain sexual acts that we think might be pleasurable we should not feel guilty or fearful in exploring those acts. The problem comes in having consensual partners and, even when consensual, harming the souls of those we interact with.<br />
<br />
First, my assuming that exploring certain sexual acts would of course, naturally, obviously, be welcomed by my female friends was ludicrous. Perhaps part of the fear some feel in asking their partners if they'd be willing to explore certain sexual avenues is that we are taught, by 'good' people like me, that anything out of the ordinary in intimacy must lead to danger. In the second story in particular my friend came to engage in a world that had been foreign to her before me. She came to think that the world of danger must be engaged in order to find friends or intimacy rather than committing to her original, more wholesome way of life.<br />
<br />
Also, whether intentional or not, there are now significant elements of power dynamics in pornography. Yet again, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but gradually, over time, we may learn that power is a necessary factor in sexual encounters. That makes it very difficult to explore in a consensual manner even if and when 'consent' is given. <br />
<br />
Second, while the exploration was consensual in a few instances, I entirely ignored what would have been uplifting and meaningful to my partners. Whether consensual or not, I re-enforced a negative way of life: that sex is the way to a man's heart and that sex is the main source of healing. Both ideas are harmful. Instead, we should be asking how we can truly upbuild one another into the whole persons we are meant to be. What we see or read in pornography may be healthy but certainly not necessary. I could have supported these women into the way of life they wanted but
instead I thought it was my right to keep them where they were, because
sex, it seemed after watching pornography, took priority. Other means of peace, comfort, and joy should be prioritized. <br />
<br />
So the real damage of pornography is how we treat and do harm to others after being exposed. Is it possible to intake pornography without being so formed? Yes. Just as it is possible to hear a friend make an argument and then disagree with it afterward. But the danger is real. We do ourselves no favors approaching the real danger and damage by wrongly and ineffectively arguing that sex or pornography are inherently evil. Rather, we should provide one another, especially our youth, with helpful tips so as to be exposed to pornography, as is almost inevitable, without losing their identity or falsely and extremely condemning sex altogether.<br />
<br />
As of right now, then, I have two tips. One, that we should ask ourselves, "Is this 'doing it' for me?" Ask that question not only with sexual pleasure in mind but with our longing for true joy and contentment in mind. Is this helping me understand myself, what I find pleasurable, and how I might live with peace now and in the future? Second, as much as possible we should read or watch pornography collectively, preferably with an intimate partner. In such a relationship we can communicate about what is healthy, what we'd be willing and comfortable to explore, etc., as we are being exposed. That way, we can voice together with those that we trust, who know the people we want to be, how we want to be formed. In no case, pornography included, particularly because it relates to the most intimate part of our living, should we allow something external to form us.<br />
<br />
All in all, whatever our thoughts or experiences with pornography may be, we should acknowledge that there are plenty of opportunities and means to harm and hurt one another. We needn't add another. You and I, as individuals, have the choice.John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-4900893980502107302019-02-27T06:44:00.002-08:002019-02-27T06:44:12.166-08:00Now What for Methodism?Following the events and decisions at General Conference 2019, the question many are asking is, "Now what?" Some are asking in a more depressed way. As in, "Now how can I be Methodist if I no longer agree with the theology and practices of the United Methodist Church?" <br />
<br />
First of all, I point you to my previous essays (here on this blog, Writing to Live) to answer part of the latter question. Methodism is not connected, or should not be connected, to a particular denomination and certainly not to any required universal agreement on theology or practices beyond Christ and grace. If one feels strongly that they are called to be a Methodist--called by God to renew Christians everywhere in the full life and power of the Holy Spirit through God's grace, so that we are not dead Christians or trapped by the structures and powers that be, called Christendom--then one can continue to be a Methodist regardless of what the United Methodist Church has decided.<br />
<br />
Of course, I want to point out that as of this writing there is some question still about what will happen to the United Methodist Church. Yes, General Conference approved the traditional plan, strengthening and re-enforcing the belief that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching and disallowing LGBTQ+ persons to be married or ordained. But many parts of that plan were deemed unconstitutional and not, as far as I can tell, corrected to be in line with our constitution. A Methodist should not care about a constitution to begin with but that's another story. The point is we aren't necessarily definitely sure. With that said, the fact that the Conference approved the traditional plan regardless of constitutionality is a sign of how committed the delegates were to the traditional plan and, therefore, many will be planning on leaving the denomination.<br />
<br />
Already I am hearing chatter of creating a new denomination. I am not one to try and persuade anyone to stay in a community in which they no longer feel comfortable. However, the idea of creating a new denomination at this point in time seems contrary to the passionate frustration and anger many United Methodists are feeling. If we want Methodism to be true to itself, true to its movement, true to God's reason for raising us up, then we do not do so by building yet more man-made structures with yet more beliefs and practices that must be adhered to.<br />
<br />
Instead I encourage Methodists everywhere to prayerfully consider letting Methodist denominations collapse and die. I encourage Methodists everywhere to prayerfully consider being Methodist in whatever church and denomination they find themselves. If that's the United Methodist Church or some new denomination calling itself Methodist, fine; if that's in the UCC or ELCA or whatever, fine. The point is that Methodism is a movement of grace for all Christians, everywhere, who are stuck in thinking that mere belief or practice adherence makes one saved. Methodism is a movement that asks dead Christians everywhere, "Are you an almost Christian? Are you a Christian in name only?" Methodism is a movement that says to dead Christians everywhere, "God's grace can empower you to love like Christ, to a full life in Christ, don't deny the very promises Christ himself made to us." The message of Methodism should not be constrained to a single group. It's meant for all Christians. Though it will take time and much prayerful discernment, I myself am considering, and have been for some time before General Conference, laying down my 'credentials' as a pastor, soon to be provisional elder, buying a house with my family and settling down and joining the nearest church as a lay person--as a Methodist; or transferring my credentials to some other denomination and serving as pastor--as a Methodist. <br />
<br />
Go forth and evangelize wherever you find yourselves, in whatever denomination, so that the spirit and movement of Methodism can once again fulfill its mission: to enliven all Christians. John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-84149548179613257942019-02-26T10:12:00.000-08:002019-02-26T10:12:08.865-08:00What is the Church?Only partially in response to the United Methodist Church's General Conference on homosexuality, I have been asking myself a lot recently what the definition of Church is. What holds a group of people together in what we call a church? What should hold a group of people together in what we call a church? Most importantly, what is the purpose of what we call Church?<br />
<br />
The way I read Christian history, we seem to have defined Church for the past thousand years or more as the arbiter of truth. Personally I have a great respect for the Roman Catholic Church, its theology and practices, but it's hard not to see our thinking of Church as 'arbiter of truth' implied in Rome's responses to the Protestant movement over time. Luther did not question whether the Church should be the arbiter of truth but rather whether Rome had veered away from truth. Obviously, then, Rome did not respond well to Luther's attempts at reform, instead attacking him as a mere nobody: "How can you think you know truth more than our established institution?" Skipping over a few hundred years, Rome then decided that the Pope is infallible. Whatever the Pope decides is indeed the word of God made manifest in our world, is truth. <br />
<br />
Over and over again the Protestant response to Rome has accepted, it seems to me, the concept of Church as arbiter of truth. I can think of only a few movements since 1700 in the Western world that have questioned that definition: Methodism and Pentecostalism. But both those movements eventually transformed into truth movements. I argue this mostly because what I hear from people who attend other Protestant denominations, as well as many Catholics, is that different churches aren't actually different. "Essentially, the worship and sermons are the same," I hear from people, and worship and preaching appear to be the only elements of church life that define a church.<br />
<br />
My question is, should the Church be an or the arbiter of truth? By arbiter of truth I mean an organization that determines for its adherents what to believe, what is right, how to behave, and what practices to follow. By arbiter of truth I include both orthodoxy (right belief) and orthopraxy (right practice). Typically those who emphasize orthopraxis think they are far and above those who emphasize orthodoxy, but essentially the two are the same. Both claim to know how Christians are to be formed by the truth that is God. <br />
<br />
That, though, seems to be the important, often missed point, that God is truth. God, then, is the arbiter of truth, for God is truth. To say that the Church is the arbiter of truth in light of God is to say that the Church is truth. There are those who may make such an argument, Stanley Hauerwas among them perhaps, but if the Church is truth in any form then we should all be Roman Catholic. If the Church is truth then there can only be one church, one expression, and we should therefore work together as one body to find, as one body, what the truth is. The history of Catholicism as well as Protestantism has proven how misguided such a notion is. We are clearly clueless as to what or how truth should be expressed in a church. How many Protestant denominations are there? Look it up. It's an insane number. Catholics are clearly still figuring it out, too. Methodists and other denominations struggling with major questions like homosexuality in the church are, then, also misguided when attempting to make decisions based on the true way of believing or the true way of practicing. If God is truth, then the Church must be something else.<br />
<br />
Without referencing every scripture passage in the New Testament regarding the church, ekklesia, I'll pick out a few that, in my reading of the Bible, are representative of what the Church is meant to be. In no particular order, we should think of Jesus's encouraging the disciples and the early church in how to interact well with each other in Matthew 18, in which he says that he is present where two or more are gathered in his name; as well as Jesus's teaching his disciples that if people exorcising demons are not against them, then they're for them; and then Paul's admonitions to collect money for the poor and widows in Jerusalem as the body of Christ. At the outset of what we call Christianity, the Church had nothing to do with order, belief, or practice. Believers should be new creatures in Christ but, otherwise, were connected by a spirit of support and prayer. In that spirit of support and prayer the believers, as the body, should keep their minds on the end goal of spreading the good news about the kingdom of God. Nothing should separate us from that.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we can point to a number of texts in which the Church is concerned with order and orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Those texts, though, chronologically, occur much later. As Yoder would wonder, not all tradition is necessarily equal. The tradition of Jesus and his disciples, how they understood the life and message, matters most. To them, it's clear that one's personal, subjective relation to the truth, the truth that is Christ, is our one and only arbiter of truth--new creatures in Christ. Truth can only be known between the individual and the Truth. Otherwise, truth cannot be known. We know truth when we have been transformed, and that only. <br />
<br />
If an individual person is the arbiter of truth as evidenced in his or her transformation in and through Christ, then the Church's role is to provide prayer, support, and accountability for each individual to find truth and live in that truth, which is Jesus. And, more, to uplift one another in such a way as to express truth in one's individual living so that others may come to appropriately use her or his own arbitration of truth. The Church, then, should not be divided along orthodoxy or orthopraxy faults; or along faults of worship, either. Rather, the Church should be united in concern for discipleship. That doesn't necessarily mean that the Church should be one, but that we should not be worried about divisions if our divisions do not interfere with discipleship, with our living person by person in the truth, transformed by the truth that is Jesus. <br />
<br />
Thinking of the Church in this way could help us put away our petty issues and instead focus on Christ--Christ in our life, as the truth of our being, and Christ for others, as the only truth worth following, so that we can pray for and support one another.<br />
<br />
This is, in a Methodist sense, what scriptural Christianity is (I refer you to Wesley's sermon, "Scriptural Christianity"). Scriptural Christianity and holiness are defined not by agreement with doctrinal standards supposedly derived from the Bible but by the love and grace infused into us by the Holy Spirit through faith. Questions about "biblical truth" on issues non-essential to salvation, as in homosexuality, abortion, marijuana, democracy, etc. are misguided. Rather, biblical truth can only refer to whether an individual is alive with the Spirit witnessed by the fruits of love and justice. Scriptural Christianity and holiness ask, "Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? Search your heart, be convicted by Christ's life and model, and follow him alone."<br />
<br />
As people of the Church, then, we should wonder together, "What does it matter if we have truth but do not have love? What does it matter if my so-called denomination has stuck together in unity but does not have love? What does it matter if Christianity has retained its traditions but does not have love? Heretofore we have wrongly defined scriptural Christianity and holiness and, therefore, do not even know what Church is, let alone Methodism.<br />
<br />
Our Church, and especially the spirit of Methodism intended to re-enliven Christians everywhere, should be a body of prayer and support to keep alive the flame of the Holy Spirit, of true scriptural Christianity and holiness: discipleship of Christ, and that alone.<br />
<br />John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-58301740051930392932019-02-01T03:15:00.001-08:002019-02-12T05:34:19.430-08:00Christendom and the Methodist Crisis on HomosexualityMost members of the United Methodist Church know by now, if they haven't
known for awhile, that the denomination is in a crisis. That crisis
centers around homosexuality and whether persons who are homosexual,
particularly practicing homosexual behavior (it’s like saying that drunkenness
is a sin but being an alcoholic is not), should be ordained or married in the
church. There is no doubt that homosexual persons are welcome in the
church as we are supposed to love all people, but the question is whether we
can ordain or marry people who are knowingly living in sin. Obviously,
then, the question revolves around whether or not homosexuality should be
considered a sin or, if it is a sin, whether that matters.<br />
<br />
Currently the United Methodist Church states that the practice of
homosexuality is incompatible with the teachings of Christianity and,
therefore, we do not ordain or marry homosexual persons. For years we as
a denomination have wrestled with varying degrees of intensity over whether our
stance should change. In 2016, our General Conference (the quadrennial
governing body for the denomination, consisting of lay and clergy in equal
number) decided, amidst yet another heated argument making other church
business impossible, to hold a Special Session of General Conference February
23-26 of 2019. Hey, that's this month! By the end of this month,
then, we will more or less know whether or not the United Methodist Church as
we know it will split based on the result of that Special Session. Most
prognosticators predict we will split. Hence the crisis. Hence why
I, as an UM pastor concerned about the movement called Methodist, am writing a
lengthy essay on the crisis. To understand the essay in full, you should
have a basic awareness of the main plans proposed for General Conference: the (Modified)
Traditional Plan, the Connectional Conference Plan, the One Church Plan, and
the Simple Plan. Googling "UMC Traditional Plan," etc. will do
the trick.<br />
<br />
To be clear, I am not writing this essay with the intention of settling a
theological score. You'll find very little here about what the biblical
understanding of homosexuality is or how to understand it contextualized in
some theological system. Rather, this essay is written from the perspective
of Methodism. How should Methodists approach the crisis and move forward
after February? To answer that question, I think it important to provide
a bird's eye view of Methodism as a movement and, also, Christendom as a
phenomenon. Understanding the movement called Methodist and Christendom
will shed light on the rest.<br />
<br />
Since Methodism's roots tentacle their way deep into, or against,
Christendom, it's fitting that we describe Christendom first. At the outset it should be clear that I'm arguing that Methodism was a uniquely anti-Christendom or a-Christendom movement and that it has now become part of Christendom. A long historical argument is, then, necessary. <br />
<br />
Typically
Christendom can be traced back to the Roman Emperor Constantine who claimed
that Jesus Christ was the force behind victory in a major battle, with a vision
and all. From Constantine forward Christianity went from being a
persecuted religion to the religion of the empire. Though a change in the
religion was not immediate by any means, nor was the religion the exact
same at the time of Constantine as it was in the time of Christ, we
can certainly easily blame Constantine's conversion and promotion of the faith for
the trend ongoing ever since. The term 'Christendom' refers to this
change: it was now the religion of the kingdom.<br />
<br />
Don't be fooled, however, because Christendom is not merely the tying
together of church and state. Constantine's purposely merging the faith
with his state, and the leaders of the faith acquiescing, is only one part of
Christendom's definition. Christendom, according to Soren Kierkegaard, is
probably best defined as "official Christianity," a Christianity that
compromises with culture to the point of being offended by the New Testament--a
Christianity that is so far from being real Christianity that New Testament
Christianity is offensive. John Howard Yoder provides an historical
analysis to explain Christendom through the lens of pacifism. From the
original disciples on through the first couple hundred of years of
Christianity, Christians were adamantly pacifist. Our first Christian
manuals and teaching guides all are clear that a baptized Christian cannot
become a soldier, and if one is already a soldier prior to baptism, then a
baptized Christian must reject any order or engagement, or oath of loyalty,
that might lead to violence of any kind. Christians were so clear on the
subject that they were known to be a hindrance to effective government (not
only because their legions were now infected but because Christians were also
clear that a Christian shouldn't be a civil magistrate or, if they were, to act
in a manner totally opposed to normal operating procedures). After all,
it is hard to interpret the New Testament, the good news of Jesus particularly,
to be anything but pacifist. That Christians then slowly compromised
their principles on this score to allow for soldiering and government
participation is the definition of Christendom. The surrounding culture
informed Christian practice in the name of ease. Though in our country
church and state are legally separate, we can still see Christendom hard at
work. Christianity is a litmus test of sorts for politicians (yikes!) and
Christians are no different than non-Christians in believing that serving one's
country in the armed services is patriotic (yikes!). Yikes, at least,
would be the response of the early Christians before Christendom took hold.<br />
<br />
Christianity, in its original definition and practice, not only wasn't
concerned with the surrounding culture and state but in many ways was actively
opposed to the surrounding culture and state. Christendom turns the faith
of Christ on its head, no longer being concerned only with discipling
(following) Christ but concerned with fitting one's faith into normal, cultural
living. Essentially what happens, then, is that faith becomes less about present
discipleship practice and instead only about future salvation; faith becomes
less about the individual person in eternal and present relation to Christ and
instead only about the propagation of the crowd of Christians. Any number
of Kierkegaard passages could be chosen to elucidate the point. One of my
favorites: "Christianity's idea was: to want to change everything.
The result, 'Christendom's' Christianity is: that everything, unconditionally
everything, has remained as it was, only that everything has taken the name of
'Christian'--and so (strike up, musicians!) we are living paganism, so merrily,
so merrily, around, around, around; or more accurately, we are living paganism
refined by means of eternity and by means of having the whole thing be, after
all, Christianity." (The Moment, 5) Jacques Ellul, too, says the
same. "How has it come about that the development of Christianity
and the church has given birth to a society, a civilization, a culture that are
completely opposite to what we read in the Bible... There is not just
contradiction on one point but on all points. On the one hand,
Christianity has been accused of a whole list of faults, crimes, and deceptions
that are nowhere to be found in the original text and inspiration. On the
other hand, revelation has been progressively modeled and reinterpreted
according to the practice of Christianity and the church." (Subversion
of Christianity) In other words, both the church and the culture are now
arbiters of Christendom for the sake of their own propagation and
security. To Kierkegaard, for an individual to be a true Christian, one
must renounce Christianity—what Christianity has become.<br />
<br />
Discipleship of Christ, in its original, intended formulation according to
Christ, was a personal choice with serious consequences, joyful and
agonizing. One must hate father and mother, sell off possessions, and be
persecuted by the state and culture for giving up their ways. Agonizing,
more agonizing, and yet joy comes. Christendom, however, removes the
consequences of personal choice and transforms faith into a social choice with
only reward--the joy of salvation and the joy of social acceptance.
Therefore, in Kierkegaard's formulation, if we are all Christians, then
Christianity does not exist.<br />
<br />
It is in the milieu of Christendom that the people and movement called
Methodist arose. John and Charles Wesley were ordained priests in the
Church of England. By virtue of the state church in England, many of the
first Methodists were ipso facto Church of England. By personal
choice? Perhaps not. Regardless, the Wesley brothers understood
that Christians needed to wake up, to revive, to feel and experience and live
in God's grace, expressed in justifying and sanctifying terms, really and
truly. Because they operated within a state church, Christendom had a
rather firm hold. The faith of Christians at the time was dead. One
of the funniest things John Wesley ever wrote is found in his directions for
singing, "Sing lustily and with a good courage. Beware of singing as
if you were half dead, or half asleep." Indeed, deadness was the
state of Christians at the time. And, perhaps, of every time. Being
a Christian was grounded in the social reward, of not being persecuted by the
state, of moving up in society, and of being like everyone else who also didn't
care about living or practicing the faith. As a movement of revival
Methodism's aim was to wake up Christianity out of its Christendom slumber.<br />
<br />
Methodism, as a movement, was therefore practice-oriented.
Theologically Methodists focused on God's grace, particularly on the fact that
God's grace can do anything. Rather than thinking that the end of God's
intention in creating us and sending us Jesus Christ was to forgive us (justify
us), Methodists believed that, actually, God wanted us to be like Adam and Eve,
to have a relationship with us as He did with Adam and Eve, obviously before
the fall. So when Jesus himself says that we can be perfect like our
Father in heaven is perfect, and other equal and similar invitations and
commands, he was serious. Jesus was both commanding and promising our
likeness to him through God's grace. Let us not, then, stop at
believing. Let that faith be active and alive in us. In other
words, we will no longer accept the complacent and compromising versions of
social, Christendom Christianity. Everything Methodists did was aimed at
inviting God's grace more and more into our lives (through a method, hence our
name) so that we could be like Christ in love and action.<br />
<br />
Take Wesley's radical stances on money and poverty. As an evangelical,
Wesley took a number of radical and progressive stances for his time. His
stance on money, though, is perhaps the most radical, even for us. Wesley
claimed that the inefficacy of Christianity to change our culture (to change
everything, as Kierkegaard said) lay in the fact that Methodists did not follow
through with the third part of his famous guidance: Earn all you can.
Save all you can. Give all you can. Wesley took Jesus's call to
sell all our possessions seriously, to give all we had to the poor
seriously. A Christian disciple living in God's grace should, like
Christ, live simply and give whatever left over to those in need. There
is no reason, to Wesley, why anyone should live in poverty. It's hard for
Christians to hear this, then and now, because of Christendom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The New Testament is offensive to us.<br />
<br />
Whether Wesley or any Methodist at any time ever railed against Christendom
using that precise word, I don't know. I would bet not. The fact
is, though, that the movement called Methodist was, at its heart, aimed at
waking people out of Christendom's seduction. We should again be
disciples, we should again live according to New Testament Christianity,
according to the likeness of Christ, not the likeness of Christendom, not the
likeness of easy and complacent Christianity.<br />
<br />
Since the theology of the movement was fairly simply, the movement actively
and purposely spread across denominations and theological divides. Those
divides, other than free grace over predestination, were unimportant to
Methodists. Wesley wrote a sermon entitled, "Catholic Spirit,"
in which he argues that as long as our hearts are right with one another, as
long as we can join hands as disciples in living, action, love, ministry and
mission, then we can and should put aside theological differences. As
long as we believe in the fundamentals of the faith, that Christ was and is the
Son of God, that he died and rose again to save us and fill us with the Spirit,
then why waste time arguing interesting but ultimately non-essential
theological questions? Let us focus on what is essential: Christ, our
discipleship, and being filled with the Holy Spirit through grace.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8341702304774112968#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>
<br />
<br />
The social structures, then, of society and denominations, and thus of
Christendom, did not matter to Methodists. Because Christendom malformed
Christianity into a faith of belief only, rather than of discipleship and
practice, matters of right belief for the sake of only future salvation became
paramount to Christians entrapped by Christendom. The difference between
denominations then became crucial. To Methodists, however, there's much
more to faith than future salvation, and thus much more to faith than right
belief. Actively living in the grace that enables us to act, love, and
live like Christ necessarily cuts across and against the structures of
Christendom. What mattered to Methodists was personal revival, the inward
journey to fullness of Spirit. There were certainly social aspects to
Methodism, namely the class and band meetings, but these were intended to hone
the inward journey, to hold individuals accountable to living according to
Christ rather than Christendom. Groups of Methodists were, essentially,
critical to ensuring that individual disciples would continue to eschew the
deadness of Christendom.<br />
<br />
For those in the know about Methodism, you'll know that there are now
significant structures in place in our denomination, particularly with the
annual and general conferences. What needs to be said here is that the
Methodist conferences at the beginning were intended to be larger versions of
the local class meetings. The conferences were intended to focus on
worship and revival. To the extent that business was conducted, it was
not the business of a church but the business of spirituality: who and where
needs help, how do we support one another, what indeed is essential, and most
importantly, how is the Spirit calling us. Conferences were not intended
to be another layer in the deepening of Christendom's structures. In
other words, how can we maintain the Spirit's moving apart from the compromising
forces of Christendom?<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, the story of Methodism is a tragic one. What was once a
fast-growing, Spirit-led movement of true disciples that cut across
denominations, theology, and all of Christendom, became instead a slow, dead
denomination. Christendom proved too powerful. Who knows what may
have happened if the Revolutionary War did not occur when it did (effectively
splitting American Methodists from British Methodists by virtue of patriotism,
a purely Christendom word) because it effectively necessitated the birth of a
denomination in the new States. Soon after the growth trends of the
movement slowed. We were now our own denomination, so shouldn't we act
like other denominations? The structures grew and what defined us theologically
grew more complicated.<br />
<br />
The split referenced above between American and British Methodists was the
first sign that something had gone terribly wrong. Logically and
historically we can make sense of why, during and after the Revolutionary War,
Methodists on this side of the pond could no longer get along with Methodists
on the other side. Again, for the most part, Methodists were members of
the Church of England because that was the state church. Sometimes we
forget that it was also the state church in the colonies. When the fervor
of patriotism--again, a word of Christendom--set the colonies against the
crown, colonials now calling themselves American wanted to disconnect
themselves from all things related to the oppressing power. Americans
could no longer justify being guided in their movement by a Brit supporting the
king. The split that led to the creation of the denomination makes
sense. Historically, anyway. Spiritually, from the perspective of
Methodists, the split makes no sense. This was a movement guided by the
Spirit in which people sought the Spirit's power in their lives to be like
Christ, and therefore a movement that cared nothing at all for the powers that
be. The one loyalty of Methodists was to Christ and Christian living,
like the original Christians. Now, suddenly, with the war, Methodists,
too, were infected with loyalties other than and above Christ and
discipleship. Christendom was creeping in. <br />
<br />
What happened at the local level was equally harmful. Local churches began
to build massive church buildings. Prior to that, the movement met in
people's houses or rented space in other denominations’ buildings. In
building our own church buildings, however, Methodists decided that the
movement was no longer counter and a-cultural.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead, we trended toward conformity, to a way of being church
concerned with making its members comfortable. Likewise, at the same
time, members of churches no longer felt it important to be held accountable to
living out their faith, to living in the grace of the Spirit, to living and
acting and loving like Christ. Perhaps it was too difficult. Rather
than meeting together in accountability groups, Methodists decided to have a
pastor do the hard work for them. Until then our pastors were circuit
riders, seeing each church on their circuit once every month to three months
(that is why we partake of Communion once a month or, in some places, once
every three months). Now churches wanted a pastor just for their single
church. That way the pastor can be the one to live in the Spirit and
everyone else can focus on living their lives comfortably as if faith played no
part except for future salvation. The story is similar in nature to what
began in 1 Samuel 8 with the Israelites' demanding a king.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, comfort and convenience became king
over radical discipleship loyal only to Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Still to this day we see these trends secure in our churches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
<br />
The previous paragraph will feel harsh and upsetting, as if I am directly
questioning <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your </i>faith or the faith
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your </i>church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t mean to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just as, if you are a white person, the
institution of slavery was not your fault but we may still be contributing to
lasting racism resulting from slavery if we do not appropriately reflect, so,
too, we and our churches are not responsible for what the local churches did
180ish years ago but we may still contribute to those trends in a major way if
we do not stop and reflect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our
reflection must conclude that clearly ours, the Methodists’, is a story of
compromising again with Christendom. <br />
<br />
All of the above happened in rather short order. So, too, did the life
of an average Methodist change. No longer was the average Methodist
concerned with giving all they could. Instead, the average Methodist was
firmly middle-class. Earning all they could, yes; saving all they could,
yes; but giving all they could? Indeed Wesley's fears about the
inefficacy of Christianity to change the culture of Christendom became
glaringly true. With our big buildings, middle-class members, loss of class
and accountability meetings, and likeness to the rest of Christianity in our
denominationalism, we had lost the battle to reclaim New Testament Christianity
in the likeness of Christ. Once again Christ and New Testament
Christianity became offensive to our sensibilities.<br />
<br />
Perhaps the worst example of Christendom's influence on the Methodist
movement is the gradual acceptance of slavery into Methodism in the early
1800's. What happened as a result of changing beliefs and practices
around slavery has had a lasting effect on Methodist-related denominations,
particularly the United Methodist Church. In the beginning, Wesley and
the first Methodists were strictly evangelical. That word 'evangelical'
had an almost opposite meaning to what it does now if we're only using the
conservative-progressive spectrum for our definition. Evangelicals were
those concerned with spreading the good news--as they are today--and believed
that radically changing society for the better according to Christ's kingdom's
likeness must play a role. Though Wesley and the original Methodists may
never have called themselves evangelical, they were, and we therefore cannot
understand Wesley's fears over the inefficacy of Christianity otherwise.
Without a radically and progressively changed society, the good news will be
ignored or disbelieved by the many whom society leaves behind. Wesley and
the first Methodists were thus adamantly opposed to slavery. How can
anyone believe that Christ is the great Liberator as in Luke 4 if Christians,
Christ's disciples, don't liberate? John Wesley died in 1791; in 1800
Richard Allen, an African-American, was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal
Church; by 1808, the General Conference allowed each annual conference to make
its own policies about slavery as an accommodation to southern states; then in
1816 the General Conference made owning a slave (for officeholders, like a
bishop or pastor) against church rules only in the so-called 'free'
states. The 1816 decision is clearly the rule of Christendom: the church's
stance will align perfectly with the legal climate for the sake of conformity
and accommodation. No surprise, then, that shortly after 1808 Allen
formed what is still called the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and not
long after a number of other splits occurred over slavery in which some few Methodists
rallied around the original Methodist, evangelical zeal that cared nothing at
all for Christendom and its laws.<br />
<br />
There are two reasons why our history on slavery is the worst compromise
with Christendom. The first is practical. At the start of the Civil
War, the Methodist Episcopal Church officially split between north and south,
in addition to other splits over slavery that had already occurred. In
1939, the southern and northern churches merged together along with another
major denomination descended from the pre-war days. The African-American
denominations, however, were not included in the merger. Not only that,
but the 1939 merger changed our connection slightly.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8341702304774112968#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[ii]</span></span></span></span></a>
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Assuming for a second that our
bureaucratic structures had weathered the storm of Christendom and deadness
(which they hadn't), those structures girded our connection: each church was
connected to its annual conference and from the annual conference directly to
the General Conference. Unfortunately, in 1939, because the southern
church still couldn't abide black people in the church on an equal footing, a
non-geographical Central Conference was created. All the predominantly
black churches were a part of this Central Conference, keeping them separate
from the white churches. Since not all the annual conferences were purely
based on geography any more, geographical jurisdictional conferences had to be
erected, adding yet another layer between each local church and the General Conference
and, indeed, separating annual conferences from General Conference in a rather
significant way. When there was yet another merger in 1968, the newly
created United Methodist Church did away with the racist Central Conference<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8341702304774112968#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[iii]</span></span></span></span></a>
but kept the new structure. What began as a fight over slavery ended 150
years later destroying the connectionality of a connectional church. Our
connection that fueled the movement of Methodism barely exists. Now you'd
be hard-pressed to find a local United Methodist church in which every member
knows why we are connected, how we are connected, or what the connection does.<br />
<br />
The second reason we must focus on the slavery compromise is that, every
step along the way of the compromise, racism reared its head. Like
slavery itself, racism is structural. Sometimes we get racism confused
with bias and we are wrong to be so confused. Bias is when we sit across
from a black person and feel dislike or discomfort simply because he or she is
black. Racism is when we look at two job resumes that are the exact same
but affirm the applicant "James" over the applicant
"Shaniqua" because we assume, given the structures of our society and
social norms, that James would be a better fit. From a structural viewpoint
the employer may be right: racism as such has separated traditionally black
neighborhoods and schools from traditionally white neighborhoods and schools,
and so if having a 'white' experience and background matters, then Shaniqua
would be a poor fit. The Harvard application race case currently
ongoing is another good example: Asians consistently receive a lower
'personality' score based not in bias but in the institutional standard of what
'good' personality is and the institutional stereotyping of Asian
culture. Racism is an institutional and structural phenomenon that
constantly perpetuates itself, especially because 'good' people defend
themselves by saying they are good and therefore not racist, which is
irrelevant. By definition, then, racism is Christendom because Christendom,
too, situates itself in social systems and structures, in institutions, and
makes decisions based upon those systems rather than based upon Jesus
Christ. What we then get are Christians like Jerry Falwell, Jr.
advocating for politicians based on policies of institution rather than on
character. <br />
<br />
The relationship of Methodists to slavery and racism makes clear that we are
no longer a movement of the Spirit but the seduced mistress of Christendom and
its institutional systems. Inherited structures of Christendom, namely
the institutions of the status quo, take precedence over the forces needed to
fuel a movement of Christ. Thus the very call for unity becomes less
about Christ and more about the status quo of Christendom. No longer are
we concerned about being filled or led by the Holy Spirit in powerful, holy,
and radically progressive ways. Now we are concerned about structures and
institutions. A long time ago we lost what is Wesleyan and Methodist
about Methodism.<br />
<br />
Indeed, we in the United Methodist Church are no longer Methodist. How
many Wesleyans or Methodists are part of a class meeting or band meeting?
Or even know what those are? How many know our distinctive emphasis on
God's grace, particularly the grace that can sanctify us into perfect
Christians, aka people who love like Christ and are what God made us to
be? How many strive to Christian perfection believing that it is
possible, through God's grace, in their lifetime? How many earn, save, <i>and</i>
give all they can to the poor and least of these? How many put Christ and
being filled with God's Spirit above all other loyalties and commitments,
including family, nation, and denomination? How many seek to spread the
good news of Christ's saving grace personally through changing the systems that
be by joining hands with others with no concern about theological or
denominational affiliation beyond the essentials to salvation? <br />
<br />
Yes, many Methodists have retained a drive to work toward social justice,
but most of those who do have lost the corresponding power of grace, believing
that Christian perfection is impossible. While many of us work for social
justice we make Christ a liar and become a regular old non-profit organization,
albeit one that happens to claim Christ as savior. Essentially Methodists
have taken two separate paths that both guarantee Christendom's sway. On
the one hand we have modern evangelicals who seek to gain adherents to the
faith but do so by the dictates of Christendom, refusing to challenge
Christendom by living separate from it; on the other hand we have radical
progressives who seek to challenge Christendom but have foregone the infinite
power of God and therefore cannot challenge anything.<br />
<br />
All Christians, then, find themselves in a crisis, but United Methodists in
particular. Following the Special Session of the General Conference on
homosexuality at the end of this month, a split may occur no matter what path
is chosen. But even before we get to the question of homosexuality
we are in crisis: we as a denomination are fighting over nothing. We
think that we are fighting for the heart of United Methodism when the heart of
Methodism stopped beating long ago. Seeing that fact clearly should mean
that we let the denomination die. Who cares if a dead thing of dead
Christendom stops walking around? <br />
<br />
The death of a dead denomination might allow the Spirit to work again, to
revive the heart of the movement called Methodist in persons and churches at a
local level, cutting across and through denominations, theology, and all of
Christendom, acknowledging that even the most theologically or organizationally
perfect structure can make us Methodist or Spirit-filled.<br />
<br />
The previous paragraph should have been the end of the essay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It's hard to continue on after arguing that
the denomination should die. I need to, though, at some point, come
back around to the question most on people's minds. What, then, are
we to do about homosexuality? What is the path
forward?
<br />
<br />
Given who we are as Methodists, our answer cannot lie in any structural
concerns. We cannot argue a path forward based on <i>The Book of
Discipline</i> or whether bishops are violating their prerogative by supporting
one plan or another. We are not a church called to make decisions in that
way. Nor can we argue a path forward based on theological grounds.
Wesley and the original movement of Methodists made clear that the only
theology that matters to the movement is what is essential to salvation--justification
by faith, God's sanctifying grace, and our need for the Christ who came in the
flesh. All else may be interesting to debate but ultimately not essential
to salvation and therefore not essential for any Methodist. If Methodists
made other theological tenets requirements, then we would never have had time
for joining together seeking to be filled entirely by God's Spirit.<br />
<br />
Now, before I state how we should argue a path forward, would be a good time
to point out that many Methodists may disagree with me about what foundations
to use in charting a course. That is understandable and expected.
But the disagreement, I think, comes in whether or not we believe that God has
called up the people called Methodist for a special, evangelical cause for all
of Christianity against and apart from Christendom. I do so believe and
therefore reclaiming the original foundations of the movement, the foundations
of the Spirit, is critical. To those who do not believe that the
Methodists are special in that way will not care about any of what I have
written here and therefore disagree about how we should decide our
future. Those people will instead seek the right path forward for the
denomination we now have rather than the movement we should have.<br />
<br />
If we are going to even be nominally Methodists as we push forward, the path
forward must be grounded in a revival of God's grace in people's hearts and
lives. As in Wesley's day, Christianity is nearly dead and is full of
dead people. It is time once again to put aside what is not essential to
salvation so that we focus on preaching and spreading God's enlivening Spirit,
the Spirit that can fill us with power so that Christ's commands to be perfect
as our Father in heaven is perfect become also promises. We must put
aside all else that does not engender true holiness in Christ's disciples, the
type of holiness that would put us on equal footing with Adam and Eve prior to
the fall, that would make our participation in Christ's likeness and divinity a
reality rather than a biblical typo--a typo repeated again and again. <br />
<br />
On homosexuality, the question becomes: is what we believe and practice
concerning homosexuality, personally and collectively, essential to
salvation? Rooting the answer in God's intention for the movement called
Methodist, I believe the answer must be, 'no.' In addition to
progressively and radically opposing slavery to the point of ordaining an
African-American in 1800 (in the U.S., that's amazing), Wesley and the Methodists
also originally sought nearly equal rights for women as leaders in the
church. At first, Wesley held the view of Christendom, that since men are
the heads of families and industry, so, too, should only men be the heads of
churches. After his mother pleaded with Wesley to hear a woman exhorter,
Wesley discerned that indeed the Holy Spirit can move in and through even
women. Again, the Methodist movement is not intended to be an added layer
of Christendom's structures but a movement of the Holy Spirit. How is the
Spirit moving? Could the Spirit be moving in persons who are homosexual
just as it did, and does, in women and in African-Americans? Should we
then ordain those homosexuals in whom the Spirit moves? If we do not,
then we have bowed to Christendom rather than the Spirit. <br />
<br />
I say all of this while also believing homosexuality to be a sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By ‘sin’ I mean a separation from God and
from God’s intentions for His children. Jesus the Christ, our Savior, and our
New Testament claim that the only beliefs that are essential to salvation are
those concerning Jesus’s person, his dying and rising in the flesh, because it
is through Christ alone that we are saved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>All beliefs associated with Christ’s person, like the Trinity, are also
essential to believe for our personal salvation because, again, we find
salvation through Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rest,
however, is about discipleship and practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Indeed, the rest, all other beliefs, become only essential to our own
individual salvation: if I believe homosexuality or drinking alcohol are sins,
then I cannot be saved if I am homosexuality or a drinker of alcohol; but if
you hold different beliefs about the non-essentials, then you are not beholden
by my personal, non-essential belief that applies only to my path to salvation
with Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Salvation thus becomes
subjective to some extent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each person
must work out their salvation in fear and trembling in relationship with Jesus
Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The objective nature of salvation
is Christ—all salvation comes through Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Christ closes the gap caused by sin’s separating us from God. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet Christ does this in each person, each
individual who strives to him and with him, who believes in him. Who are we,
then, to tell a person that, if they believe all the right things about Christ and
the associated beliefs, all that is essential to salvation, and their
subjective faith in Christ is enough, they are still separated from God?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever the reason may be, whether they are
inclined to lying or homosexuality, how can we know that someone is still
separated from God even though they have the essential beliefs and relationship
and, subjectively, are working out their salvation with our objective God in
fear and trembling? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More than claiming
that they cannot be saved and reunited with God, how can we say that they
cannot serve God as a pastor or through marriage, because of a personal belief
we hold about our own salvation that is not essential to said salvation?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><br />
We may feel like we are doing people a disservice by letting them live in what
we believe to be sin, and thereby not living the life of joy and service God
intends for them, but the same holds true for any sinner (which is all of us):
if the sin in question is not directly related to belief in Christ’s person,
our role is to point them to discipleship and practice by asking, “Are you
living the life God intends for you?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Each person must answer that question on their own as they work out
their salvation and perfection with God in fear and trembling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any person or entity that inserts into the
salvation formula far more than is necessary, more than Christ, that person or
entity is a stumbling block.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as
Christ said, it will be worse for the stumbling block in the last days.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8341702304774112968#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[iv]</span></span></span></span></a><br />
We must reaffirm that God did not raise up the people called Methodists to
reform theology or institute the most effective denominational structure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other denominations may find some strange
hope in determining universal truth for all its members, even if they call it
“plain truth” or some such illusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All
that is plain is the revelation of Christ through the Holy Spirit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Therefore, God raised up the Methodists in a
particular way so that the Spirit could revive dead disciples everywhere in the
way that we live, to be alive in the Holy Spirit—each one of us working out our
own salvation and striving to perfection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Holy Spirit can and does speak prophetically to structures,
certainly, but as defining forces in church life and personal holiness the Holy
Spirit cares little for structures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Holy Spirit infuses us with the power of the life of Christ so that we can live
as disciples, no matter what Christendom and its denominations and cultures may
tell us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Methodist spirit thus takes
priority over personal beliefs not essential to salvation or any search for
universal truths to subject people under beyond what is essential.<br />
<br />
Perhaps more importantly, the fact that I, or any one, feels the need to
write or speak on the question of homosexuality, and the fact that we are
having a Special Session of the General Conference on homosexuality, is part of
the problem. Wasting breath on matters not essential to salvation, like
homosexuality, bar the movement of the Spirit in two ways. First,
those who are homosexual, and their friends and loved ones, hear and see our
obsession with the question and ask, "Seriously?" Despite our
denomination's insistence that we should love all people, including
homosexuals, it does not in any way preclude homosexuals and others wondering
where our priorities lie. Why declaim a homosexual as a sinner and not a
divorcee or an unwed mother, both of which receive far more words of
condemnation in the Bible and from Jesus himself? For many, our obsession
with homosexuality is not just theologically wrong but plain
hypocritical. Or, worse, an indication that we are more concerned
interpreting the book of Christendom than the person of Christ.<br />
<br />
Secondly, every breath spent debating the issue of homosexuality is a breath
not spent reforming ourselves back into a movement of the Spirit. All the
oxygen that should be used to align ourselves again with Christ against and
apart from Christendom is instead sucked up on non-essential matters.
We're thus unable to face the real crisis: our conferences, our churches, our
pastors, and our members are far from living a Methodist life of Spirit renewal
and exultation. For the most part, those colleagues of mine ardently
supporting the Traditional Plan, or something like it, also see no problem with
single-church appointments for our pastors, even though a pastor serving a
single church slows down revival and evangelization because the burden for
spiritual work is clearly laid on the pastor rather than the lay people.
We pastors seem to want a denomination that will give us good-paying and
stable jobs rather than spiritual renewal; we lay people seem to want a
denomination that reinforces our laziness. Whoever we are, we want a
denomination. And we want a denomination that allows us to call ourselves
Christian without any resulting personal or social consequences to our nominal
discipleship. This is the true crisis and we have no time for it.<br />
<br />
As a Methodist, then, a Methodist concerned with spiritual renewal by the
power of the Spirit and God's grace, concerned with living the life of a
disciple of Christ against and apart from Christendom as Christians and
Methodists were meant to, the Simple Plan seems the best way forward if and
only if we want to continue as a denomination.<br />
<br />
The One Church Plan is a close, but unfortunate, second. The OCP seems to
try to care little for matters not essential to salvation, which is good, but
in fact what it does is similar to what the Methodist Episcopal Church did
about slavery: inscribing two opposite positions into official denominational
policy. In practical terms, all the OCP does is take us one step closer
to one day announcing an official, progressive theological stance or a
traditional contemporary conservative stance. Yet it would be an official
stance not essential to salvation or our heritage as Methodists.<br />
<br />
The Traditional Plan outright does what the OCP only hints at doing: taking
an official theological stance on a matter not essential to salvation. If
we are seeking theological correctness on all matters, the TP might make the
most sense. But as Methodists, if we are concerned with our own heritage
and purpose, then we should not be concerned with universal theological
correctness across the denomination or Christianiaty on any matter not
essential to salvation. That means any plan enshrining theological dogma
on any matter that is not the Trinity, God as Creator, Jesus as Son who came in
the flesh to live, die, and rise again for us, Spirit as Redeemer and
Empowering Force, and God's Love and Grace, are nearly irrelevant to the way
forward.<br />
<br />
As for the Connectional Conference Plan, well, I know hardly a one who
supports the plan. The CCP leaves us at square one in many ways but,
rather than leaving things as they are, would cause a giant pragmatic
headache. <br />
<br />
Simply put, if we want to move forward as Methodists, we must remove
Christendom from the equation as much as possible, which means removing as much
denominationalism as possible. The Simple Plan does just that: removing
all language about homosexuality<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8341702304774112968#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[v]</span></span></span></span></a>
because it's not essential to salvation or our ministry as grace/Spirit-filled
evangelicals. Recently a church member asked me how, in the Simple Plan,
the denomination could secure agreement on what to believe or practice
concerning homosexuality. Removing all language about homosexuality, as
the Simple Plan proposes, would also leave room for theological vagueness and
possible theological disunity. "Exactly," was my answer.
By bothering to have theological clearness on the issue we not only discredit
the spirit of Methodism but also waste time that could have been spent on
radically living into and by God's grace and progressively spreading the good
news. According to the Simple Plan, we will not bother with non-essential
issues and can press on with the real crisis of spiritual deadness in the
church.<br />
<br />
At the end of the day, however, while I am sure that the Simple Plan is the
most Methodist of the proposals before the General Conference, I am far less
sure that a single proposal can be the solution. The crisis will be in
vain regardless of the approved plan if the character God raised up in the Methodists
remains unknown and unwanted. So whatever happens, our prayer, whether we
are Methodists or not (since Methodism is supposed to revive all Christians),
should be that the Spirit lights the church aflame. Perhaps that flame
needs to burn down the church. If the church remains standing, though,
the flame will hopefully renew us in the spirit of the movement called
Methodist, the movement that God raised up, like a judge in the Bible, for a
particular purpose: to call Christians out of Christendom into true,
grace-filled discipleship as God in Christ intends, commands, and promises.<br />
<br />
Whatever happens, may we be renewed in the spirit of Methodists, the Spirit
of God.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
Endnotes<br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8341702304774112968#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 107%;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">In the New Testament, when anyone tries answering the question what is
essential to the faith, as in 1 John 4, the answer rests in Jesus’s life and
death and rising in the flesh. That’s
about it.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<div id="edn2">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8341702304774112968#_ednref2" name="_edn2" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">[ii]</span></span></span></a>
We call ourselves a connectional church, meaning that each church is connected
to every other through a tight relationship. It's part of our strength
and unity. It's also nearly mandatory for a movement that cuts across
theology and Christendom: if you leave town for some reason you need to know that
there will be others committed in the same Spirit-led and
Spirit-focused way in strange, foreign places. A connection fuels a
movement.). </span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<div id="edn3">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8341702304774112968#_ednref3" name="_edn3" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">[iii]</span></span></span></a>
Sort of. We still have Central Conferences. They refer to non-U.S.
based conferences, but most of the non-U.S. based conferences are in Africa,
so...</span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<div id="edn4">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8341702304774112968#_ednref4" name="_edn4" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">[iv]</span></span></span></a>
If we were to talk about this in a more complex way, we should again turn to
Kierkegaard. I have heard a lot of
people argue that the issue is that people in the church in favor of LGBTQ ‘rights’
are simply doing theology based on experience.
As in, “I’m a homosexual,” or, “I know a homosexual,” and “homosexuals
are not bad, therefore let’s ordain them and marry them.” By doing theology based on experience, these
folks say, we are actively self-affirming rather than self-denying. Besides the fact that Wesley and the
Methodists have long advocated for experience to have a role in doing theology,
as in the women story, many of these people have a point. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not, at heart,
self-affirming but self-denying. As much
as we might like him to, Jesus does not say, “Whatever you are doing and
whoever you are, awesome! Believe and
you’ll be saved.” Jesus does not offer a
gospel of self-affirmation full of joy, salvation, and heaven. Salvation, yes, but what comes before that
salvation is self-denial, the cross.
Even before Jesus takes up his cross he tells us to take up ours. To Kierkegaard, therein lies part of the
offense of New Testament Christianity—we want to be affirmed and yet we are
told to deny ourselves. We are therefore
theologically correct to say that Christians should deny themselves, including
homosexuals and, also, including heterosexuals in the style of Jesus and Paul,
though we conveniently skip the latter. The
strange part is that Kierkegaard also adeptly pivots and rails against
theologians, assistant professors, and half-baked pastors (to him, all pastors)
for creating a theological system, whether that system is one of self-denial or
not. What happens when we create a
system, even of self-denial, is that we then transfer Christian discipleship
out of the realm of the individual disciple and into a nebulous realm of
nothingness. We can point to the system
as having the answer, thereby affirming ourselves by affirming the system, and
instead of focusing on our own discipleship in Christ we focus on the system’s
alignment with Christ. Certainly, the
traditional plan, the plan of denying self and experience rather than
affirming, carries the greatest theological weight; at the same time, however,
it points to a system. Christ called
you, individually, personally, to deny yourself and follow him. If we sidestep the call in favor of a system
of self-denial then we become nothing, we’re worse off than before. When it comes to Christian discipleship,
then, we must deny ourselves by denying our theological system. It’s okay to have a system, perhaps, but not
to make decisions based upon it. Rather,
we decide upon Christ, upon our discipleship.
You and I must do so. Christ is
not a system. If we want to deny
ourselves, we must deny our system in trying to make a decision for others and
even ourselves. The decision for or
against Christ, cross and all, comes in the heart and mind of each person who
would sell all they have to follow him. </span></div>
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">In sum, Christ does not want
theological followers. He wants “to
pierce your heart also.” How Christ acts
and interacts with each true disciple, we cannot know—we must deny ourselves
the possibility of knowing what Christian submission looks like in each person.</span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8341702304774112968#_ednref5" name="_edn5" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 107%;">[v]</span></span></span></a>
And transgender issues, which are related.
Though the main topic is homosexuality, all along we’ve also essentially
been talking about transgender issues as well.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
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<![endif]-->John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-76435437199801940942019-01-09T09:22:00.002-08:002019-01-09T09:22:33.871-08:00Jesus in a Stable? How We Read the BibleObviously this essay comes a little late, as we are now past Christmas entirely. However, a friend of mine posted this article early in Advent and I think it's worth consideration: <a href="https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/once-more-jesus-was-not-born-in-a-stable/?fbclid=IwAR3JuKg8f1dCx5lWHFt_xGgHxylLi3M8enhsVWWqtOCh38XelGziEmvvSPQ" target="_blank">Once More Jesus Was Not Born in a Stable</a>. I do not, though, think it is worth consideration in the same way most others who commented on the article do. My friend and others thought the article proved a point about Jesus's actual birth arrangements while I said, "Who cares? The meaning of the story remains the same." With time to elaborate my position, here's a clarification why I do not think the word and socio-historical study found in the article matters at all. It is perhaps best that you read the linked article before continuing.<br />
<br />
Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Matthew's version of the good news seems to assume that Mary and Joseph lived in Bethlehem prior to the birth. In that version of the gospel we have no travel story from Nazareth to Bethlehem and Mary and Joseph are still in Bethlehem a year or two after the birth, when the magi arrive. Those two pieces of evidence strongly imply that Mary and Joseph lived in Bethlehem and only came to Nazareth after having to flee Herod's wrath. We're not dealing with Matthew's version here because the word in question is not used in the birth narrative, though it is important to keep in mind the general understanding of the narrative found even in Matthew: the birth of Jesus was not comfortable because his parents became refugees soon after.<br />
<br />
Luke's version of the gospel, which does use the word <i>kataluma</i> (traditionally translated 'stable') in the narrative, makes the case of discomfort slightly more pronounced, at least prior to the birth. While pregnant Mary has to travel quite a ways. First she visits her cousin and then she travels to Bethlehem. Often, with the advent of cars, we think of walking sixty to ninety miles as a massive undertaking. It wasn't then and it isn't now. Still, even then, there's the obvious understanding in Luke that traveling while pregnant is not exactly ideal. To then be met with no available room, whether in an inn or in a family's house, would have been no doubt frustrating either way. <br />
<br />
Consider being pregnant near your due date, having traveled to a place just for a census, and then people don't make room for you. If it's an inn we're talking about, that makes sense: people would have already paid; if it's a family's house we're talking about, it makes no sense, despite the attempt to argue Joseph and Mary surely would have been invited in by family. Think about how you'd feel if your family, no matter how distant, saw how pregnant your wife is and said, "Oh, sorry, but your cousin Peter already took the guest bed. You know how it is." If the socio-historical argument that Joseph and Mary certainly would have been welcomed by family, but the house was already full because others had gotten there first for the census, is considered correct, then that is actually an act of extreme inhospitality for not kicking someone else out to make Mary more comfortable. The foundations of the argument are actually contradictory.<br />
<br />
Besides, the mention of the angels to the shepherds that finding a child lying in a manger will be a sign to them must be considered, too. Putting a newborn child in a manger must have been surprising. Otherwise it can't have been a sign. If something unsurprising were the sign then the shepherds may have searched around the town forever and a day and never found Jesus. That is especially true when we think again of the socio-historical argument: if everyone's homes were full, then Jesus may not have been the only child lying in a manger. He may have been the only newborn lying in a manger but he can't possibly have been the only child wrapped snugly in a manger if we're to understand that everyone's homes were bursting due to an excess of hospitality. Also, if the manger with the animals were inside the house, as Ian Paul argues, then that means the shepherds would have had to look inside every single person's home. Hospitable society or not that seems a bit strange. The story's implication is that the shepherds would have easily found the sign. Essentially the problem is this: the socio-historical argument tries to explain what happened by describing the expected average of society at the time, but the story itself argues that we should dispense with the expected average because it was surprising. The discomforting surprise is the sign to the shepherds.<br />
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(As a footnote, but not knowing how to do footnotes on a blog: Ian Paul, in the article, argues that since animals and therefore mangers were close to or inside the home that "stable" is the wrong translation. I question that. There's a reason that the second definition of the Greek word is to 'unloose or untie.' Whether the word means a place to unloose or untie, or it means a spare room in a private dwelling, either way animals would be there. In that case, our understanding of the word "stable" as a place where animals are still applies. The issue, then, is not with the translation but with our understanding of how stables work. Keeping animals in the stable away from the home is a very recent invention in the ultra-civilized West. Through the 1800s, as I understand it, "stable" still would have had the appropriate meaning. The argument is a little strange to me.)<br />
<br />
There are further and more serious issues with the socio-historical argument which underpins the interpretation in the word study. Already I have hinted at a literary contradiction within the story, if and only if the argument in the article is accepted. That contradiction grows when we consider the wider context of salvation history as found in our scriptures.<br />
<br />
Our story must return all the way back to David. Appropriate, considering both birth narratives make it a point to connect Jesus to David through his geneaology, albeit in different ways. Actually, our story must go further back into our salvation history but it's all related to David. It's possible to use more passages as explanation here but I'll focus on the major ones.<br />
<br />
In Judges 19, the people of Benjamin, of which Bethlehem is originally a part depending on which passages we use and how we draw the maps, prove more inhospitable than even the people of Sodom. The people of Sodom threaten anal rape but do not have the opportunity to follow through. The people of Benjamin, in Judges 19, do have the opportunity, raping and killing a fellow Israelite's concubine and leaving her dead outside. What's worse about this act of extreme inhospitality is that the man had originally stopped outside Jebus, a non-Israelite town, and decided to continue on his journey for fear of not being welcomed. Indeed, he wasn't welcome by the people of Gibeah at first either, with no one offering him a place in their home. It was only when an older man came back from the fields, offered the man and his concubine a place to stay the night, that the people of Gibeah (of Benjamin) felt the need to make sure the man did not feel welcome by raping someone, either him or his property, his concubine. Interestingly, the man's concubine is from Bethlehem. The story ends with the man cutting his concubine into twelve pieces, sending it to the twelve tribes, asking, "Has anything like this ever happened since we came out from Egypt?" Obviously the answer is, "No, how horrible," so the rest of Israel almost wipes out the tribe of Benjamin.<br />
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What Judges 19 teaches us is clear and simple: the rest of Israel did not like the tribe of Benjamin because of this act of inhospitality. Judah is implicated, too, because the story implies that the concubine and her father, from Bethlehem in Judah, proved testy and difficult. If we read Genesis well we'll know that the character of Judah was probably only marginally accepted by the rest of Israel, as well, because of his sexual encounter with his sister, Tamar. The dislike that the rest of Israel definitely had for Benjamin and may have had for Judah would only grow with the coming kingdom.<br />
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Before the kingdom if Israel comes to fruition, God through the prophet Samuel tells the people quite clearly in 1 Samuel 8 that His chosen people do not need and should not have a king. Having a king of Israel, God essentially argues, would mean a spiritual failing among the people of Israel. Of course, God is not entirely surprised, since the episode in Judges 19 is the basically the story immediately prior to Israel's demanding a king. Despite God's urging, the people of Israel demand a king anyway. God gives in. <br />
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We should notice, however, that 'the people of Israel' demanding a king may not have applied to the entirety of Israel. The first two kings of Israel, before kingship is passed along by blood, Saul and David, are Benjaminites. How strange is that considering what has so recently transpired with Benjamin? More than that, Saul is said to reign in Gibeah, the offending town in the Judges story, for thirty-eight years. Interesting. Then, when David is first crowned king 'of all Israel' in Hebron, only the tribe of Judah is present (2 Samuel 2). All the other tribes support Saul's son. Only after Saul's son dies by assassination do the other eleven tribes claim David as king of 'all Israel.' It should come as no surprise, then, that when Solomon's son Rehoboam comes to power over the kingdom of Israel that the ten tribes other than Judah and Benjamin come, with Jeroboam as their representative, to complain that they are being mistreated by the king, first by Solomon and now by Rehoboam. Rehoboam rebuffs the people and the kingdom splits with the northern ten tribes taking the name, "Kingdom of Israel," and with Judah and Benjamin taking the name, "Kingdom of Judah." Reading this story it is hard not to think it entirely possible that the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, the disliked tribes within Israel, are the ones who wrongly demanded a king, which simply added to the division between Judah/Benjamin and the other ten tribes. Based on the trajectory of the tribal characters it makes sense that Judah and Benjamin would initiate a kingdom so opposed by God and the other tribes and that the other tribes would then need to rebel against the kingdom of Judah and Benjamin. <br />
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One last story we should consider is that of Ruth. In the Christian Bible, the book of Ruth is placed before the books of Samuel (the story of David) as if to propagandize David's lineage. In the Hebrew Bible, however, the book of Ruth is placed in the section called Writings. Many scholars argue that Ruth was written around the time of Ezra and Nehemiah when the prophets were advocating a cleansing of the Israel, meaning that foreigners be kept separate from true Israelites so that Israel could again be holy. The prophets believed that the dissolution of Israel's character was due, in part, to taking non-Israelites as wives. By placing the book in Writings, the Jewish people understood that the story is a fictional attempt to counter the prophets' argument--foreign wives, like Ruth, can actually have the character of the people of Israel. It is the character of Israel most at stake in the book of Ruth. Ruth's famed loyalty is actually not the point of the story except as one indication of what Israel's character can and should look like. More importantly to the story's attempt to recapture the true nature of Israel's character, whether embodied by a foreigner like Ruth or not, is Boaz's hospitality shown to Ruth and Naomi. Note well that Naomi and Ruth come home to... Bethlehem, a town of Judah (and, again, possibly Bethlehem according to a select few). Bethlehem was known to be David's city, so connecting Ruth to David makes sense; but connecting the call to hospitality to Bethlehem, a town of one of the tribes the rest of Israel had come to know as inhospitable, is far more significant. The writer of Ruth is arguing that even the two southern tribes of Judah and Benjamin can reclaim the character of Israel, and that doing so is more important than removing foreigners from Israel.<br />
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If we are going to understand the birth narrative we should first understand the above. The issue is what true believers in God, those who want to be righteous according to the law and according to the true character of Israel, think of Benjamin and Judah, the southern kingdom, and David's reign. Based on the literature of our salvation history written prior to Jesus's birth, it would appear that anyone wanting to be a true Israelite would probably stay away from the tribal lands of Judah and Benjamin and the sites of royalty, including Jerusalem and the temple, even while acknowledging those sites as important. Perhaps Joseph and Mary, whom we read are both righteous, have purposely left their familial lands--at least according to Luke's version. Perhaps Mary and Joseph acknowledge that their family's character, at least historically, will not positively influence their relationship with God.<br />
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More to the point, we must ask if Mary and Joseph would have been welcome by family, no matter how close, in Bethlehem, in a land in which the people of Israel have made clear in the accounts of our salvation history are not, actually, hospitable. The assumption, socio-historically, is yes. Maybe so. But the assumption of our text in which we learn of our salvation history is probably not. Indeed, Joseph and Mary may not have wanted to be welcome by a family whose lands they have left. Whatever Mary and Joseph may have wanted, though, the text of our salvation history affirms Luke and Matthew's perspectives that the birth was probably uncomfortable and, then, the standard interpretation that Mary was more or less alone except for Joseph and some animals may be more appropriate.<br />
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A further indication that Mary and Joseph may not have wanted to, or at least may have expected not to, receive hospitality from Bethlehemites is Mary's own declaration of what was happening in her Magnificat. Praise and glory be to God for looking on the lowliness of her servant and for uplifting the lowly, feeding the hungry, and sending the rich empty away. The entire gospel according to Luke paints Jesus as comfortable with the lowly, as amongst the lowly (footnote: Take, for instance, the lawful offering noted by Luke in 2:22-24, the alternative offering for the poor), and serving the lowly and poor. Personally I would also argue that the passages most difficult to read for those who value family are emphasized in Luke's version of the gospel, as in, "my brothers and sisters are the ones who follow my Word," and "you must hate father and mother, brother and sister, etc. to be my disciple." If I'm right about that, then the other story of Jesus's childhood in Luke's version, that of his being left behind in the temple, fits right in: Jesus himself may consider himself a loner (footnote: Again, personally, I'd argue that Luke emphasizes how often Jesus goes off by himself to pray more than other versions of the gospel.). We're focusing here more on Luke's version because of its role in the stable debate but if we combine the refugee story in Matthew, again, the picture we get from the narrative is that of lowliness and separateness, perhaps to the point of loneliness, for Jesus's parents and possibly Jesus himself. What that means is that the story would be arguing for Jesus's birth to occur in near solitude, away from family, because, as Mary herself acknowledges, the child to be born will redeem such humiliations. According to the story of salvation history, we should assume inhospitality and discomfort before we assume anything else, and not be afraid of such readings because Jesus has taken on that loneliness, discomfort, and disgrace. At no point does the story support a reading in which Jesus and his parents are welcomed during the birth.<br />
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According to my reading, then, it is far more appropriate to still think of Jesus's birth occurring in a stable than not to. I do not argue that the reason is because Jesus no doubt was born in a stable, whether it's how we currently understand a stable or not, nor do I argue that the reason is because it is easier to accept our traditions as they are. Rather, I argue that the meaning of the story of Jesus's birth and how the story tells us who Jesus is and will be, as understood by the text itself, is best understood by modern minds by thinking of Jesus as born in a stable.<br />
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My reading of the birth narrative clearly depends on a wider, literary reading of the Bible itself, trying to understand the full context of the story in salvation terms as told to us by God Himself through our scripture. The other reading, in Ian Paul's article, assumes a socio-historical approach: what were the times like, what did this word most often mean and how does it apply to my approach? The tricky part about interpretation is that we often can't assume one approach is right and the other is wrong. Without question Ian Paul's word study and socio-historical rendering of the story is interesting. Interesting, certainly, but to reprise my former and original question, should we care?<br />
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The way I see it, Paul's socio-historical approach assumes that historical generalities apply even when something as surprising and shocking as the birth of our Savior occurs. If we agree with such an assumption, then perhaps we should care about his argument that Jesus was not (despite the contradictions in the argument itself) born in a stable or anything approaching a stable. My literary approach, however, assumes that God speaks to us about the meaning and means of salvation through scripture. And in so assuming, I am more concerned with the meaning that the stories have to speak to us (footnote: By the way, part of Paul's defense is that other scholars have been making the argument for a long time. He goes back to, you guessed it, the time when the socio-historical approach first starting gaining serious tracking. I bring it up because without knowing it he argues my point, that before that people were less concerned with his approach and more concerned with the overall meaning of the story and of salvation history.). Paul's general question of whether it is good to challenge assumptions and traditions is absolutely correct. But to further imply that one's challenge is actually 'right' is not at all correct. There are different ways of reading the Bible. Of course, in this particular case I think the socio-historical approach is out of place and fairly weak, especially compared to my literary-contextual approach which takes into account the character and history of the people of Israel through God's lens. At the end of the day, though, even I have to admit that it is up to each of us individually how to "get it right." <br />
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So who cares whether Jesus was born in a stable or not? Not I, because with or without that fact I can read quite clearly the meaning of salvation history through Jesus's birth: he comes to live amongst and as the lowly and outcast, the poor and alone, so as to bring salvation to all of God's children.<br />
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(And as a tangent added on to this essay: Those most interested in challenging traditions and assumptions through a socio-historical approach and the related word study concerned with Jesus's birth seem, to me, to not know how to read the Bible in other ways. Not only that, but they seem hell-bent on limiting the surprise, shock, and pure awesomeness of Christmas in an attempt to make it only about what historically is assumed to have happened. Another example is the recent attack on the song, "Mary, Did You Know?" Based on a cursory reading of Luke 1, people say, "Yes, of course she knew, so let's stop singing this song which is about the mystery of salvation through Christ." Other than pointing out that there are questions in that song that Mary almost certainly did not know, it's critical to point out that the meaning of the words/phrases "ponder" and "treasured in her heart" used so frequently in relation to Mary and Joseph before Jesus's adulthood suggest that Mary did not know. Mary heard, yes, but did not know. Over and over again Mary seems taken aback by who her child is going to be and is. Herein lies faith. Like if someone came and told you that your son will be a famous singer one day because of how he cries in infancy, you may hear that but not fully grasp how it could be possible. Salvation in hindsight is still too much for us to fully grasp, let alone know; so prophesied salvation through an as-yet unborn child, or an as-yet not adult child, especially when it is your own, would surely be too much to fully grasp. Taking the text in an historical sense, yes, Mary knew. But I am sad for those who take such a limited approach. They are missing the joyful response of faith, that believes even when we don't understand, that hopes even when we don't know, that rejoices even when we don't see, that follows even when the destination is only promised. Mary did all of that in her faith, not in her knowledge. We should do the same.)John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8341702304774112968.post-82783741416522966732018-12-19T09:52:00.000-08:002018-12-19T09:52:10.663-08:00Christmas and RealnessEvery year Christians of various stripes try re-claiming the meaning of Christmas. "Put Christ back into Christmas" we say. Sometimes the more scholarly of us try finding new or paradigm-shifting ways of reading the birth narratives in the Bible. Whatever we do, almost all Christians use Advent to complain that Christmas is no longer really Christmas. I wonder if we're using our time wisely.<br />
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One of the major targets of complaint, of course, is consumerism. We spend too much time, effort, and money advertising and then buying gifts as if the gifts make Christmas. Certainly that is true. But then we need to talk about families who are not able to afford gifts of any kind and who are, instead, worrying about how to afford heat and electricity through the winter. As a pastor, I have received a number of those calls over the years and it's always heart-breaking. "Please, I want to give my kids a Christmas and I don't know what to do." I could tell those parents that, actually, Christmas is not about giving or receiving gifts. I could do that, but I doubt I'd be very helpful. This year, though, one of my churches has been extremely helpful in providing a Christmas for a handful of families in turmoil and financial stress. We provided a trunk full of mittens, hats, and scarves to families in need; and another trunk full of gifts to three families who otherwise would not have had any. Our giving was in coordination with DCF, and when we dropped off our gifts to the case worker, the case worker cried tears of joy; one of the parents, we learned later, also was overcome with tears of joy and exclaimed how amazed she was that a church would be so generous. It was through our gift-giving on a personal level that showed the case worker and a number of families what Christmas is really about. We cannot be quite so quick to dismiss consumerism. An element of consumerism can and does speak Christmas to those in need.<br />
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Now, this essay is not about consumerism and Christmas. Rather, it's perhaps useful to say that our trying to determine the meaning of Christmas for people serves little use. What does it mean, really, when we say we should put Christ back into Christmas? (By the way, as an aside: when people say we should put Christ back into Christmas, I think they are reacting to people's writing or saying, "XMas." Which is funny because the first letter of Christ's name in Greek, the language of our New Testament, is X--spelled 'Chi,' generally pronounced 'kai.' Throughout early and late Christian history, X stood for Christ. 'Xmas' is, in fact, quite appropriate.) Or what does it mean when we dig into the birth narratives using our preferred method of interpretation to figure out the real meaning of Christmas? Next to nothing, I argue.<br />
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To make my point I reference a wonderful movie, <i>Anomalisa</i>, if for no other reason than that you should watch it. In the film, the main character, Michael, is a successful but hopeless man searching for meaning in his life while away at a hotel for a conference. Watching the film, you quickly notice that everyone except for Michael has the same voice. Male or female, every character speaks with the same voice. Obviously, then, to Michael, life is dreary and he cannot enjoy any interaction or relationship, not even with his wife or son, because everyone is the same person. Or, put another way, everyone is no one--no person is real except for himself.<br />
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Imagine Michael's elation, then, when he hears a different voice from down the hall. He runs to search for the voice, frantically knocking on doors hoping he'll find the real person. Michael finds her, Lisa. She happens to be rooming with a friend, Emily, and both of them are there for the conference because they're big fans of his. Both of them, then, jump at the chance to have a drink with Michael. Emily fawns all over Michael, filling the stereotypical role of a beautiful groupy. But Michael decides not to have easy sex with Emily, who is the same as all other people on the planet, and instead returns to his room with Lisa, who is awkward, not intelligent, and rather erratic. Michael is quite simply entranced with her voice, with her realness, and wants to spend the night listening to her. So Michael tells Lisa to tell a story. While she's talking, Michael initiates a sexual encounter.<br />
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There's much more to the movie but this is a good place to take an intermission. Indeed, my wife, Danielle, and I did take an intermission at this point, and Danielle proceeded to share her anger about Michael. "Typical man," she said. I wasn't angry with him and Danielle was surprised. "You, a pastor, are not angry with a guy who just committed adultery?" I want to say that it's a movie and I would be upset and disappointed with anyone who commits adultery, though I'd also pray with that person. The reason I wasn't upset with Michael, though, is worth investigating.<br />
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The question is: can you commit adultery if the person you're married to is not a real person? If everyone in the world is fake except for you and your mistress, is that adultery? Think of all the fake people as cardboard cutouts. If I were to slash apart every cardboard cutout in the world, is that murder? Or is it only murder if I also slash apart another real person? If both are murder, then do we commit murder every time we flatten a box to put it into recycling? Is it possible to do harm to a person who isn't even a person, who is more of a some<i>thing</i> than a some<i>one</i>? Human traffickers often prioritize convincing victims that they are not a person but are ultimately a thing, and that is evil, but that's not what we're talking about here. What if everyone had never been a person to begin with?<br />
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These questions remind me of Diogenes the Cynic, who is known for having carried around a lantern in broad daylight. Everyone thought him to be a fool but, in response, Diogenes claimed everyone else was a fool. "I'm in search of an honest man," Diogenes would say. A later story about Aesop is similar, in which Aesop claims he's looking for a real, or honest, man. According to these stories, everyone on earth except for the philosopher himself were, actually, walking around in darkness, despite the sun's being out. The philosopher thus needed a lantern to walk around in such darkness, that only those in the dark perceived as light, and would find an honest, or real, man because the other real man would either also carry a lantern or be stumbling around as if lost, like Michael in the film.<br />
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Believe it or not, our holy writ agrees, in principle, with Diogenes. The best example comes from Paul's Letter to the Romans. In that letter, Paul argues that all people, though alive, are actually dead. If we're reading carefully, I think that we'll find Paul means this literally. We are all dead. We may think we are alive but we aren't. The only way we can be truly alive is if we let go of our death and live through the Holy Spirit. Only by the power of God's Spirit can we find life, have life, and live.<br />
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One of our philosophers, Soren Kierkegaard, also agrees. All of his writings, his whole life purpose, was dedicated to "that solitary individual," that one other person out there who was stumbling around in the darkness. Kierkegaard's magazine, <i>The Moment</i>, make his argument clear and plain: you all who claim to be Christian have no idea what Christianity and discipleship actually are; you're not real; you're not alive; you're dead, walking around in darkness calling it light. To Kierkegaard, following the dictates of the Church did not a Christian make, and so even if a person 'put Christ back into Christmas' via the Church, that person would still be fake, would still be a cardboard cutout. Christ's Incarnation on Christmas did not occur so that we could say, "I believe in Christ," just like all other cardboard cutouts, and be saved. Rather, Christ's Incarnation on Christmas occurred so that we could find Christ, truly, in our hearts and lives, and be real. What being real in Christ means, though, is that we appear to be a man carrying a lantern in broad daylight.<br />
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What Christmas is about is being a real person, being a Michael, a Lisa, a Diogenes. Christ's coming into the world isn't so that we could celebrate the birth of Christ but so that we are not cardboard cutouts. Prior to Christ's coming into this world as a real person, as really human flesh, religion ruled the day. Nietzsche is right on this score.<br />
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Oftentimes Nietzsche is labeled as the bane of any religious person's existence. If that were true, then that would mean that Christians are incapable of reflecting on the nature of our faith. Nietzsche's philosophy is critical, I think, in understanding the meaning of Christianity. Not the entire philosophical system but some of it. The most relevant of Nietzsche's ideas is that religion formed around an attempt to codify and perpetuate rules, probably for the sake of creating a system of power. What perhaps began as a true and charismatic religion becomes a system bent on creating new cardboard cutouts, concerned only with what God told us to do and what God promises to do for us, as told through the powerful priests, rather than concentrating on the nature and existence of God and our existential relationship to that God. All religions do it, though Nietzsche focused on Judaism and Christianity. Look at the Buddha and Buddhism. The Buddha tried escaping a rules-based system, the caste tradition of Hinduism, and didn't want to start a religion. Instead, the Buddha attempted to tear down the rules and simply find nirvana. What resulted over time, however, was and is a religion that, though without many rules, still centers around a "how to" rather than a "be/being" system. Luther, Wesley, and other first movers of new denominations in Christianity have had the same experience. In trying to delete rules-based religion and return to a charismatic, faith-based "be/being" way of life, rules-based religions and new denominations come into being. <br />
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What Nietzsche well articulates is that spiritual movements meant to revitalize individuals striving toward or finding salvation in real, being ways, meant to aid individuals to find the objective reality of God/Truth/Nirvana in a personal/subjective way, then quickly and inevitably themselves turn into demanding objective realities that eschew the very Spirit behind the revitalization. So what was once about finding God's grace in our life, being slain in or led by the Spirit, finding oneness with nirvana, etc., becomes about being a good member of a religion or denomination. Rather than being real people with our own unique voices as we seek and live with the Spirit of God, we become living cardboard cutouts, living the lives we think we "should" based on what a religion or denomination has told us; our inner monologue is no longer our own or one synergistically worked out with God but instead is a script given to us. In that case we are still living, our hearts are still beating, but our lives are not real.<br />
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For our lives to be real, we obviously cannot be a cardboard cutout, and that means putting aside the script given to us by the author of a religion or denomination or nationalism. It is difficult to do so. The script and voice of the author (as opposed to The Author) is often compelling. Almost all men everywhere, pig or not, would have slept with Lisa's friend Emily because she is intelligent, charming, and clearly putting herself in a position for an affair. Lisa, on the other hand, is awkward, not intelligent, and barely seems to understand what's going on in her own life. Choosing Lisa over Emily in that situation may sound like the right choice on paper but when put into that situation hardly anyone would do so. The non-real choices scripted for us by the fake voice and author are always more compelling because we have been scripted/taught to choose them. Yet choose Lisa we must in order to be real. Despite all her deformities, and indeed her face is scarred, her strangeness and awkwardness, Lisa is confident in seeking out grace, hope, and her own identity on her own, for herself and by herself. That is realness, and like Lisa it is one in a million.<br />
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In choosing Lisa and realness, however, we must always be on guard against the corruption of charism, the corruption of Spirit. The kicker in the movie is that, when Michael decides to leave his wife and son and go off to live with Lisa because she is real, her voice starts turning into the same voice as everyone else's. Lisa even repeats verbatim a statement made by another character earlier in the film. Michael is left hopeless. He is the only real person in the world and he is alone. Yet we must wonder if, after all, Michael is at fault for the sameness of voice he hears. He is the one who tried controlling Lisa to conform to his plan, his desire, and wanted to correct some of Lisa's idiosyncrasies. Michael says aloud that he thinks Lisa is being "too controlling," but ultimately it would seem that Michael himself is trying to control Lisa. Indeed, Michael himself becomes predictable. What had begun as a unique relationship in which all he wanted was to listen to Lisa speak quickly morphs into a predictable affair. At the beginning, a thoughtful, genuine seeker of Truth, grace, and Spirit could relate and empathize with Michael, as he appears to be seeking for something real. Gradually it becomes clear that, rather, Michael actually desires for something real to be given to him; he wants the script, the author, to give him something real. Thus, when Michael encounters realness, he tries to coopt and corrupt that realness to his understanding of what the script should be not only for himself but now for other people, too. Michael misunderstands his own personal, subjective search for grace as something that should be given him; and he infringes upon others' ability to embark on the same search.<br />
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Michael's failure on his journey and hopelessness as he returns home teaches us a couple lessons: while the path to realness may always be open to us, realness itself is not given to us by a script, whether it be our own script or someone else's; and we cannot at any time compel or corrupt realness, in ourselves or others, to conform to our own desires. In other words, we do not have the power to decide for Truth, grace, Spirit, whatever we want to call it, how we will find realness or how we will respond to realness. We only have the power to decide whether we will embark on the journey or not. What we will find on the journey and who we will become on the journey, well, that will be decided by God's Spirit, nirvana, or whatever else interacting with our own spirit. <br />
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Reflecting on realness in this way, what I said above about Christmas and how most Christians nowadays approach the holiday should now make complete sense. More than that, it should be said that, indeed, each person is a child of God. Christ was born in real human flesh so that there could be good news for all people, as if God was truly saying to us, "You are now able and free to truly and genuinely seek me out, to make your journey to realness." However else we interpret the Christmas stories, one thing remains static: travel. No one is content in the Christmas story sitting put. It is not enough to hear about the script. Those who want to hear the good news do more than hear it. They seek it out, they journey, they want to be made real and no longer be cardboard cutouts. To be made real requires a journey, a journey that is impossible to script. It is a journey only you, the individual, and God/Spirit/Truth/Grace/Nirvana/etc. can know. It is a journey, though, that Christ's real fleshness opens up to you. Every step you take, the path rearranges to always be open to and for you.<br />
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This Christmas, then, perhaps we dedicate ourselves to contemplation and ask, "What am I doing with my life? Am I real or scripted? Is my voice my own, developed between God and me, or is it essentially the same as everyone else's? Have I corrupted my journey to realness, or someone else's journey, through an non-spiritual form of religion or social contract?" Spending time in contemplation and asking these questions is not only the possible beginning of a journey to the realness God intends for us, the realness that Christ's birth was and is meant to encourage, but such contemplation is also foundation of the Christmas tradition.<br />
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Catholics are perhaps right to honor Mary as they do. She is the biblical version of <em>Anomalisa'</em>s Lisa.<em> </em>Mary does a lot of questioning, pondering and treasuring from conception through the entirety of Jesus's childhood. Though she has heard the very words of an angel, though she has heard the praises of shepherds who repeat the words of the angel, and though she has heard the words of young Jesus himself, Luke 2:50 quite clearly relates Mary's pondering and treasuring to her not knowing what was being said to her. In other words, Mary is not content blindly accepting a script, even if that script is full of good news and given to her first by an angel, then by miraculous intervention, then by the Son of God. Instead, Mary must contemplate, she must ponder, she must process life on her own in her own way and thereby sustain her connection to the Christ and thus, too, her realness. The letter to/of the Hebrews calls Jesus the "pioneer of our faith," and that is true, but perhaps Mary deserves that title, too. We cannot ignore Jesus's own pioneering. In that Luke 2 story of Jesus's childhood, when Jesus stays behind in Jerusalem rather than returning home with his parents, forcing Mary and Joseph to anxiously and angrily look for Jesus after being lost for a couple of days, it is as if Jesus is saying, "Look, I must do what is right for me to be in real relationship with our God, with my God, and I cannot merely follow the script of a son." Jesus and Mary, then, the holy family, prove to us that the contemplative journey to realness must be done in our way, in our heart and mind, a subjective searching for the objective. Communities of faith can be and are crucial to our journey as long as they are not scripted or lead us to follow a script. God, Christ, must be real to us, individually, in order for ourselves to be real.<br />
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So however we read the Christmas story, however we understand the Christmas story, now is a time to reflect on our realness and whether Christ is real to us. Have we been made real, on our own unique journey, by The Real?John H.D. Lucyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15242209312699001952noreply@blogger.com0