Discrepancy

Family leave? Hardly.
Day care at work? Maybe.
Health care? Still uneven.
Child care? Expensive.


Stay home with a sick child?
Lose pay?
Lose job?
What a choice!


Send a sick child to school.
Worsen the condition?
Infect other children?
What a choice!


How does a family do it?
If they're not rich ...
How does anyone do it?
Without a lot of help.


Yet, some deny job protections.
And sex education.
Some deny the value of a woman’s choice ... and say that every pregnant woman has to give birth, even still birth, if that’s the deal.
And some just say No!
To universal health care.
To family social supports, if these supports come from Uncle Sam ... especially if they’re from the Uncle Sam ... “we can’t have no socialism in this here country, because we believe in the law of claw, and the survival of the fittest ... because Jesus said that somewhere, at least that’s what the preacher said, and I’ve got my gun to defend m’self and a bullet with your name on it.”


"If you want help, go to church."
They say.
But most churches can't help.
Beyond a meal or two.
Maybe a babysitter a time or two.
Maybe a dime a time or two.
Certainly a prayer a time or two or three or more ... and the last time a prayer fed a hungry family or provided child care, I don’t remember ... but the one praying felt mighty good about it and gave the single mom a tract on salvation and the coming judgment of God.


Some say, again and again:
"Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps."
And then cut off the bootstraps.
And then take away the boot.
"Because some folks are just not deserving."
They say.


A discrepancy, I’d say!

A Young Man Reading His Bible

A young man, neatly dressed, suit and tie, hair combed back tightly, on the Red Line to downtown, reading his Bible ... from the look of it, somewhere in the Minor Prophets.

He was so ernest, so intent ... yet I felt a great sadness for him ... wondering if anyone with any skill or knowledge was guiding him.

When the Ethiopian Eunuch was reading the Bible on his way home, God sent Stephen to him, to help. The man confessed he didn’t understand what he was reading, and Stephen provided guidance.Individual Bible reading is a good thing, if one knows how to read it, much like reading any piece of literature.

One simply doesn't pick up Plato and start to read ... or if one does, sooner or later, at the very least, some googling will be in order. And perhaps consulting with others, or enrolling in school.

Whether it be the Gideons and their "miracle stories" about the man in the hotel room, ready to take his own life, but at the last minute, reading a Gideon Bible and turning to God for help ... or any of the miracle stories told by evangelicals on TV and radio and pulpit, people are set up for a spiritual crash. Much like telling an adolescent to get behind the wheel of a car and jut go - God will guide you.

Whether it be Augustin or Calvin, St. Teresa or Mother Teresa, the spiritual life requires community, and never a community of ignorance, but a community of learning, scholarship, study and reflection.


"Put a bunch of cabbage heads together and all you get is slaw" is true enough for so much of evangelicalism ... no wonder things get so crazy as parents who "trust the LORD" let their little baby die because they don't believe in doctors.

Or a 19-year old boy is beaten to death by his parents and others who wanted him to confess his sins, whatever that means.

Such hideous perversions emerge out of the cloud of ignorance, a miasma of death hanging over all of it, where good is bad and bad is good - a world turned totally inside out and upside down, a world always isolated from the larger currents of religion and culture.

I wonder what will happen to that ernest young man on the train reading his Bible?

Will he find someone to guide him to maturity of faith? Or will he slip into some hideous realm of hyper-legalism and violence?

I hope not.

But history makes it painfully clear that when isolated from the large and refreshing streams of Christianity and human culture, even the clearest water soon grows murky and fetid.

“As a Christian ...” What does that mean?

Christians, it seems, pretty much believe everything and anything, in one form or the other, and behave accordingly:

Death penalty, abortion, war, Confederate Flag, drugs, sex, immigration, age of the earth, flat-earth, after-life, did American’s walk on the moon or not, homosexuality, women’s rights, rape, welfare, socialism, capitalism, Trump and Carson and Sanders and Hillary ...

And the religious stuff: Jesus, God, Holy Spirit, salvation, damnation, predestination, inspiration, the devil, hell, heaven, baptism, communion, nature of the church, papacy, and a myriad of doctrines, like infralapsarianism or supralapsarianism, millennialism, post-millenalism, pre-millenialism, many of which are convoluted beyond description ...

And Baptists (how many different kinds?), Presbyterians (a bunch of them, too), and Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Free Church, “debts” or “trespasses,” Pentecostals, dunkers, sprinklers, tongue-speakers, high-church, low-church, Reformed, Lutheran, Independent, non-denominational, store-front, King James Bible, pantheism, panentheism, theism, atheism, spiritualists, free-thinkers, revivalists, covenanters, extemporaneous or scripted, robed or bluejeans, clerical collar or button-down shirt ... pulpit or stage, organ or band ...

Seems to me that “christians” manage to believe just about everything on any given topic ... and behave in ways that pretty much cover the possibilities; so, what the heck does it mean when someone says, “As a Christian ...”

Perhaps it has some meaning in countering what “some other Christian” has to say about something, especially if that “christian” claims universality for her or his belief, such as “the only christian position on abortion is absolute prohibition.”

Well, then, “as a Christian,” I support a women’s right to choose. 

So there ...

For some, when I hear, “as a Christian,” it carries the sense of “Well, that’s settled!” As if “the christian” no longer has to think about it. That it’s been resolved for the ages, flowing in some kind of a pipeline direct from the throne of god.

I think there was a time when “as a Christian” meant “I’m going to heaven,” with the veiled threat to another, “And if you’re not a Christian, like I am, then you’re bound for hell and eternal flames. And, if that’s your choice, to be stupid, instead of smart, like I am, then I don’t give a damn, so to speak.”
But such things seem hardly worth anyone’s time these days. Even hardcore “christians bound for heaven” seem to have a harder time with all of this damnation stuff these days. What with all the hell-on-earth in which millions have to live every day of their life. 

Very few are comfortable enough to just say, “Here’s how I see it!” Adding, “as a christian,” gives it boost, a little more legitimacy, weight, value, or so we might think. As a christian, and I r 1 (end of discussion, eh?), it helps to consult the broader tradition, which pretty much says everything that can be said about anything, contradictions and all (how bloody christian history has been) ... but in the final analysis, one can only say, “Here’s how I see it” and maybe add a few whys and wherefores, and maybe even say, “I’m a christian, as I see it” ... but in the end, it’s all just opinion, and we’re stuck with that. Like it or not.

So, what’s the value of saying, “As a Christian ...”? Other than affirming what we we all know, and some would like to ignore, that Christians pretty much believe the entire spectrum of possible ideas on just about everything ... and behave accordingly.

The only option: live with it, state your case, with appropriate conviction and humility, and be kindly toward others ... especially those who live in hell-on-earth, and be ready to fight for them, set them free, and ready to challenge those who would perpetuate that kind of hell-on-earth in order to create their own private heaven-on-earth world in gated communities of privilege and power.

Maybe it’s best to say, “As a human being ...” but, then, that has it’s own issues, too!

Smile, you’re on candid camera!

Reading Psalm 56 Upside Down

I've read Psalm 56 many a time, especially in hard moments of ministry, and have found it of great comfort and encouragement.

It's a Psalm regarding David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath (as the notes say).

Of course, the Philistines are the enemy, and David the victim of their cruelty and great evil. Poor David, we assume, and with him, we shed tears and give thanks that god is his side, and sooner or later these evil Philistines (is that not a redundancy?) will meet their just end - defeat at the hands of the righteous David.

But this morning, I read it upside down.

I found myself reflecting on two moments:

1) Recently, the Kim Davis Affair, and how easily we can isolate ourselves from all questions about our behavior and assume, with plenty of encouragement from friends, family and fellow-believers, that we're in the right, without question, god is on our side, and the enemy is the one who opposes us.

2) My reading of "Empire of the Summer Moon" - about the Comanche and Texas - the clash of two powerful, violent cultures, both given to war and conquest, both wanting land. In the case of the Comanche, land that belonged to them because of their conquest of other tribes, their successful use of Spanish horses, having defeated both the Spanish and the Mexicans, but unable to defeat the Americans, because of their overwhelming numbers of settlers moving westward, their diseases, weapons and the buffalo hunters. Violence on both sides, incredible violence. In the hands of the Americans, it was all turned against the Comanche, the only good one being a dead one. And, for the American, it was their Christianity that gave them the right to this land; it was their manifest destiny. The Indian, unbaptized and pagan, had no rights whatsoever. And if the Comanche are cruel and violent, just wait: Americans know how to be just as cruel and violent, and then some, and all in the name of god.

How different is this Psalm when read upside down.

David might have asked himself:

1) Why do the Philistines see me as enemy?

2) Is it because of my "faith in god," or because I want their land, I want them gone, I want them defeated and dead?

3) Is it because I believe in manifest destiny: god gave this land to us and told us to kill everyone in it, including women and children and even livestock?

Given what I know of David and history, it's no longer possible for me to read this Psalm sympathetically. It's way too easy to read it and simply see "the other" as "enemy" and myself as "the righteous one." Way too easy to exonerate myself and vilify the one "hurting" me.

If David were a counselee, a good counselor would likely explore with him how he's offended and hurt others. How his beliefs and attitudes put others off and alienate them. How his views of life are essentially narcissistic, and his self-serving view of god is the root of violence toward others. A wise counselor would explore this sensibility, "that god is on my side exclusively, and what the Philistines have is mine to take because god said so."

I have read this Psalm in times of turmoil, and been comforted by it, and may well read again in that light.

But it's a dangerous Psalm that can easily blind the reader to her or his own sin against others, and blind the reader to the humanity of the "enemy."

It's a Psalm that needs to be read upside down.

I Have My Work Cut Out for Me!

For much of my career (ordained #PCUSA, Jan. 1970), I've been aware of the great divide in this nation: Ecumenical Protestantism, Progressive Judaism and Liberal Catholicism on one side, and on the other side, Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism.

For lots of reasons, I suppose, I've always reached out to Evangelicals and Fundamentalists - no big deal, I'm sure - like a cup o'coffee or a hamburger and some conversation. I wanted to be a bridge builder.

Can't say that it ever worked! Generally, they believed I wasn't even a Christian, or, at best, a very poor one. Though I've never thought of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists as "not Christian," though I was never comfortable with their "conversionist" theology, me being a "covenantal" thinker, with infant baptism as the liturgical cornerstone illustrating God's sovereignty in these matters. Many a time, I was told they would be praying for me, and on a number of occasions, I asked them not to pray, since their prayer was mostly a call to God to change me into their own image - hardly a prayer of love, and surely not a prayer for learning together about God's greatness.

Anyway, the divide has only grown wider ... what was at one time a silence between the two sides has now escalated into a shouting match, as Evangelicals find themselves on the losing side of the Marriage Equality question.

Evangelicals certainly have had their day in the sun, you might say, ever since Ronald Reagan learned how to play them to his political advantage, and there was a time when they felt on top of the heap, and crowed ever day, with books and sermons, that Ecumenical Protestantism was on its last legs, and there would be a new Evangelical America free of abortion, without Marriage Equality, with Bibles and prayers in the schools along with creationist curriculum.

Well, that certainly didn't come to pass, and now the sun seems to be shifting a bit, with Evangelicals now confused, because it seems that their god is no longer working things out as had been expected. And all of this is turning into a deep and violent anger.

The current state of affairs is very disheartening. I don't even know any longer how to talk to an Evangelical ... whatever we might have had in common 30 years ago now seems to have evaporated.

Evangelicals, led by the Huckabees and Santorums, have hardened in their thinking and politics in light of Marriage Equality - because what they truly what is a theocracy, not a democracy. Sadly, much of this Evangelical fervor now is tangled up in Southern Nullification, old-line racism, State's Rights, misogyny, and guns.

FOX News has chimed in on this, too, with full voice, and GOP candidates have joined the fray, all trying to out-Bible one another, yacking endlessly about "religious freedom" and the rights of believers to "practice their faith."

It's a first-class mess, and I have no idea how to deal with it, other than to be what I am - and to articulate my vision as clearly and compassionately as I can, and do so with passion, too, not laying down in front of the Evangelical freight train, but countering it with clear and incisive theology and ethics.

I have my work cut out for me.

Before More Damage Is Done

There are times when the very word "christian" rests bitter in my mind and heart.

What with the media's fascination with evangelicals and their bigotry, and what with the megachurches trumpeting their special brand of power and miracles, with their steel-jawed preachers and their bosomy beauties, in the minds of many, this is what Christianity is all about.

Meanwhile, more thoughtful Christians, and, yes, there are plenty of them, sit back, mostly stunned into silence, hoping the whole mess will sort itself out.

Perhaps it will ... I get the feeling that evangelicals have gotten about as crazy and mean-spirited as they can get, short of resorting to arms and killing the "heathen" (I guess some of the swamp-bred militias are doing just that, or at least, want to).

I have always believed that Americans are mostly sensible. Religious, yes, but with a certain restraint and will not long tolerate religious extremism, of any kind.

I have always believed, as well, in the primal character of the Spirit of God, the Creator God - that the Spirit always hovers over the chaos and darkness, calling for light, and bringing forth a degree of order, process and progress toward cohesion, creating an environment in which life can emerge, evolve and prosper.

How it works, I don't know, but it works; that much I know.

I can only hope that it works soon enough, to contain the monstrous distortions of the Christian Faith, these days combined with the fascist instincts of wealth and power, before any more damage is done.

Homosexuality: The Conservative "Last Stand"

Andrew Hodges, author of "Alan Turning: The Enigma," describing the findings of scientists by the mid-20th century regarding the mind and human development: "... nineteenth and twentieth-century science had been peeling the onion of the mind, and had dented the concept of responsibility with 'mental illness', shell-shock, neurosis, breakdowns and so forth. Where was the line to be drawn? The conservative fear was that every kind of behavior would be excused by appeal to some irresistible, uncontrollable, force majeure. ... they sought a non plus ultra [nothing beyond this] to the pretensions of mental determinism, a barrier against the flood of threats to traditional values unleashed by the Second World War. They found one in homosexuality: the new men's talk of 'conditions' and 'complexes' was not to be allowed to excuse a deadly social evil, corrupting and weakening everything in its path" (p.579).

It's hard for me to fathom the relentless social/moral fears flooding the conservative mind: to approach the world in fear, in terms of threat and loss, believing one's self to be surrounded by enemies.

Though, of course, I have my own set of fears regarding the ever-present threat of fascism (the easy answer to complex questions), and where fear is high, fascism is just around the corner.

Yet, my Christian Faith provides a basis of confidence: "Fear not."

And "perfect love" (meaning complete, no piece missing) "casts out fear."

The conservative mind will gladly take away freedom in order to maintain social morality. And no better arena in which to engage the "liberal enemy" than the arena of sexuality, both homosexuality and women's bodies.

Here is the fulcrum on which the conservative mind balances ... lose here, and everything is lost.

Whereas I say: win here, and everything is gained - freedom and democracy grow all the larger.