Bandits No More

There is great social unrest happening in Iran. With the repressive regime, this is no surprise. Keep praying for the people of Iran.

In response to those who say Christians should tend to “lost souls going to hell” instead of “meddling” in the political arena…

If we consider that doing something about “lost souls going to hell” to be what Jesus was about, and take what we see him doing and hear him saying in the gospels as an expression of that activity, then It sure looks like his concern is expressed very differently than what I’ve seen in contempoary churches that use that kind of languge to describe their mission. Jesus didn’t shy away from controversy with any of the parties of his day – the local parties that is. His controversy with Rome turned out to be pretty one sided (at least in the short term).

Our American weakness is that we tend to think there are two sides to every issue. Perhaps our two party system strengthens our belief this is so. But that’s not the way it is. In many areas there are many, many sides to an issue. This is especially true when we think of something as big and complex as a Vision for America.

The common denominator between the political groups we call “liberal” and those we call “conservative” are that they are both rooted in modern liberalism (the JOhn Locke tradition), focused on political freedom and individualism. Doubtless there are great differences in the way each group appropriates the Lockean tradition. One side emphasizes absolute freedom in one area, while another defends it an another. Think of private property (and money) and sexual morality as examples.

Our difficulty as modern American Christians is that Jesus is not a
Lockean. He is not an individualist (in our modern sense at least). He is not an American. He – and his teaching – just won’t fit in our boxes.

Would Jesus be “concerned” about abortion? It doesn’t seem to have been an issue in his local world so we don’t hear him saying anything about it; but it was an issue in the broader Roman world so his followers spoke to it within the first couple of generations.

Would Jesus be “concerned” about wars – either of conquest or of
freedom-seeking-revolution? If Tom Wright is right in his reading of
Jesus, then a major point of contention between Jesus and at least the Shammaite Pharisees (and the zealots) was the method of achieving national deliverance. The latter advocated violent overthrow of the Roman oppressors – being better at the power game than Rome was. After all, God was on their side, so size wouldn’t matter. Jesus, however, rejected the way of power, taking instead the way of weakness, the way of the cross. Of course this reading of Jesus necessitates that see him fulfilling not merely OT promises of individual salvation, but also fulfilling promises of salvation to Israel the nation. However we read
Jesus, the early church – and the Romans, for that matter – took his message to be something like, “Jesus is Lord – and Caesar isn’t.”

Would Jesus be “concerned” about government deficits? Would it make a difference whether the deficits came about through financing a war, the reconcstruction of a broken country (or two or three), of massive pork to keep buying votes? Or would he speak against the greed, acquisitiveness (consumption-itis), selfishness and violence of the electorate?

The insight that accountability to fellow believers is essential to growing in maturity as a Christian was central to early Methodism. Methodism survived beyond Wesley’s lifetime because of his organization genius, and that genius focused on developing structures to of accountability.

To the extent it has retained accountability, modern Methodism has translated it primarily into bureaucratic institutions. As individuals, Methodists don’t really care to be help accountable for the way they live their lives. I believe that is a major reason we lack the power of early Methodism. If we are to recover that power, we must find ways to recover spiritual accountability.

Here’s one idea: Start where you are.

Most of us already find ourselves in relationships. Start by allowing the people closest to you to hold you accountable. If you’re married, ask your husband or wife to hold you accountable. If you’re not married, ask your parents, children or a friend to work with you. Start in practical areas. Agree on a set of questions that fits your situation. Here are some suggestions:

• Am I being faithful to my marriage vows and to the needs of my family?
• Do I listen to my spouse and children in such a way that they are convinced I am listening?
• Am I demonstrating the Fruit of the Spirit in my family life in such a way that my family is being drawn to Christ?
• Do I have a healthy balance in my relationships – family, work, ministry, and recreation?

We can answer each of these questions for ourselves in the privacy of our own minds. But that won’t work very well. We’re just too prone toward self-deception. We need outside input from those who are close to us and know us well. In my experience, those who are least willing to allow those close to them to challenge them in these areas face the greatest risk of self-deception.

Once upon a time it seemed a good thing to many United Methodists that our denomination was not fraught with doctrinal disputes and narrowmindedness the way some are. The phrase, “The thing I like about being United Methodist is that you can beleive whatever you want to beleive,” caught hold. People would say this with pride!

A learned and respected colleague in ministry reiterated this old point yesterday at a meeting I attended. “One of the strengths of Methodism [should we suppose he intended to exclude the EUB part of our tradition, or that, being Texan, he is geographically prejudiced against the old midwestern church?] is that all are welcome at the table, without regard to what one believes.” I was caught between astonishment and gagging, but for the sake of decorum showed neither.

I like the idea that this metaphorical table at which we meet is not under the control of some close-minded fundamentalist. Though, like most, if the table is under the control of someone with whom I tend to agree, I care less about the parameters for exclusion than if it is controlled by someone with whom I generally disagree.

As I pondered this colleagues’ stupifying statement, I could not help but wonder how the church got to this point. Doesn’t calling our particular “table” Christian necessarily imply that some views are more welcome than others? Are there no longer any bounds to what is “Christian” and what isn’t?

Where do we decide what is and what isn’t Christian? At the Table.

If found guilty, Stroud could lose her ministerial credentials. Her
church has established a legal defense fund to help her pay for church attorneys.

If she’s confessed to it, how can she not be found guilty?

At one time there were 380 tons of high explosives at this Iraqi base. Now (apparently) the explosives are not there.

Kerry and his campaign are shouting high and low that this is yet more evidence of mismanagement by Bush.

Pro-Bush people retort, “The explosives were already gone by the time the 3ID arrived last April,” implying, “We’re not at fault.” In this piece by Clifford May in NRO we even see the suggestion that the UN inspection regime bears major responsibility for never doing anything about the explosives.

As far as I am concerned, blame is irrelevant. If we are in the midst of a war, then what matters is:
(1) Where are the explosives now?
(2) Is there anything we can do to retrieve or destroy them?

Why must our political culture focus on assigning blame? They sound like a bunch of children. We become aware of an apparent disaster and all we can do is talk about whose fault it is.

It’s time to grow up.

This is only a tiny (the last) part of an extensive interview with Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham, Biblical Scholar, evangelical leader and member of the commission that produced the report. He brings up the very important subject of adiaphora and discusses the complexities attached to it. Clearly the modern notion that everything is adiaphora (except for qualities and actions that make you PC) won’t work. Here’s what he has to say.

Another thing that’s central to the report is the question of what is known in the trade as adiaphora, things indifferent. It has been a principle of Anglicanism, from the very beginnings in the 16th century, that there are some things which Anglican Christians can agree to differ about. The real question at the heart of much of this is, which of the things we can agree to differ about and which of the things we can’t agree to differ about.

Again and again I hear people on both sides of the argument simply begging that question and assuming that they know without argument that this is something that we can agree to differ about, or assuming that they know without argument this is one of the things we can’t agree to differ about. What we all have to do is to say about any issue—whether it’s lay celebration [of Communion], whether it’s episcopal intervention, whether it’s homosexual practice—How do we know, and who says which differences make a difference and which differences don’t make a difference? [Presiding Bishop] Frank Griswold and his colleagues make a great song and dance about difference and about accepting difference and respecting difference. That’s almost the only moral category that is left within postmodernity, welcoming the other, which is actually a very difficult moral standard to implement right across the board.

The critical thing is there are some differences which would divide the church. For instance, if somebody decided to propose that instead of reading the Bible in church, we should read the Bhagavad-Gita or the Qur’an, most Christians would say this is no longer a church and that’s a difference that we simply cannot live with. But if somebody says I really think we should never put flowers on the altar and somebody else says I think we should always have a bowl of flowers on the altar, most people would say that’s an issue which we must not divide the church about. It’s a local issue, which each church will have to decide for itself. And there’s no point in getting in a lather about it.

Now the question is, all these different issues that we face, which of those two categories do they come into? How do you know? And who says? Until we have prepared to address the question in those terms, the thing will just remain as a shouting match.

Go and read the whole thing.

It has been more than 100 years since the Rev. Bernice Powell Jackson’s great-great-grandmother was prohibited from marrying her great-great-grandfather. She was Irish and he was black – mixed-race marriages were illegal then in Virginia.

It seems odd to say that all restrictions about who can marry whom are now considered to be evil. I know that the current cry is for men to be allowed to marry men and women to marry women, but this seems different than what happened to Rev. Bernice Powell Jackson’s ancestors. My guess is that people at the time saw the relationship as a marriage, though an illicit one, while they would have failed to see a cross racial same sex relationship as even being a marriage.

The argument is not so much about who can marry and who can’t, but about what constitutes a marriage. The urge is to get the government – at some level – to get in and tinker with this basic social institution and change its nature.

Last Summer Lyle Schaller spoke to a group at the meeting of the Northern Illinois Annual Conference. His basic message is that that Conference, if they keep going in the same direction, will not be with us much longer. The reporting of the message is somewhat disjointed, but here some some of his main points:

“The Methodist Church is an HMO with an offering basket,” the church growth consultant concluded. He pointed out that a 75 percent majority at the national conference in Pittsburgh said “we needed a bigger offering basket” for larger employee pensions.

The national conference approved a 33 percent increase in church expenditures over the next four years.

“Old institutions choose between greater change and obsolescence,” he said. “About 1966-67, the decision (by Northern Illinois Methodists) was to vote we’re not going to be competitive. It carried and has been implemented.”

The church’s weekly attendance has nose-dived since then from 75,000+ to 46,000+. He noted that the number of new members is down 50 percent.

“If you decrease the number of new customers by 50 percent,” he stated, “you go out of business.”

“Are we ready to concede that?” he asked.

“No” was his answer.

A large part of the problem, Schaller said, is that local congregations are now viewed as financial resources for the denominational hierarchy.

“When I was a pastor, denominations existed to resource congregations,” he remembered.

The role reversal “hasn’t worked.”

Church size is important in recruiting members born since 1960, Schaller explained.

United Methodists are not competitive with other Protestant denominations, the speaker asserted. As evidence he compared statistics from 1965 with those of 2000. In 1965 there were 35 Methodist churches in the jurisdiction with 400 or more people going to church each week. In 2000, that had decreased to “only 13.” Five congregations were on both lists.

In the book of Ezekiel God comments to Ezekiel, “The people really love hearing you speak. They say, “The man speaks like a bird sings. It’s so beautiful.” But they don’t do a thing you say.” After reading Lyle Schallers commentary on the church for a number of years I think Schaller must feel like Ezekiel. He’s popular, had dozens of hbooks published, always in demand as a speaker, yet when we don’t listen to him.

A few years ago he wrote Tatterted Trust about the breakdown of trust through the UMC. The pastors don’t trust the laity or the denominational hierarchy. The laity don’t trust the preachers. The hierarchy doesn’t trust the churches. This lack of trust is killing us. In my experience his analysis was completely accurate. As far as I can tell absolutely nothing was done about it.

This past summer he came out with The Ice Cube is Melting, about the continued decline of the UMC and its fragmentation into warring factions. As far as I can tell we’re so much in love with a sort of unity (mostly institutional) that we’re just as prepared to ignore him now as earlier.

The third stanza of Henry Tweedy’s hymn, O Spirit of the Living God, contains a Bozo line – one line that makes me cringe every time I read it.

Teach us to utter living words of truth which all may hear,
The language all may understand when love speaks loud and clear;
Till every age and race and clime shall blend their creeds in one,
And earth shall form one family by whom Thy will is done.

A creed is a set of beliefs. In this stanza we are praying that God will forward our efforts of syncretism. Maybe one day we’ll be a Methodist, the next a Buddhist, the next a Muslim, and so on. Of maybe we’ll just be good Americans and go to the Reilgion Cafeteria and pick what we are attracted to at the moment while we let everyone else pick what they want. If I want spinach salad and you want jello, no big deal. If reality is a particular way whether I like it or not (and it sures seems like it is), then this avoidance of the issue of truth will be quite dangerous. – just like it is dangerous for drivers (and riders) to think that the laws of physics wouldn’t apply to their bodies (in motion) in a wreck. Why wear a seat belt if you’re the exception to the rule (opinion?) that a “body in motion tends to stay in motion.”?