Sacraments in Cyber-Space

I meant to post on this last week, but moderating comments from the post I put up last Monday took up a lot of time!

A very popular liturgy blogger in New Zealand joined in the conversation about if and how sacraments can be done in a virtual environment, specifically Second Life.

Apparently there are churches in Second Life where one's avatar can go and participate in worship, including Holy Communion. This is problematic for Rev. Bosco Peters, who maintains the Liturgy blog, because he is an Anglican, thus his theology of Communion is very high (as in "High Church").

Note to my theologian colleagues out there: please forgive the gross oversimplifications that follow. I'm trying to make this accessible to everyone.

High church traditions (Catholic, Anglican/Episcopalian) are very restrictive in terms of who can preside over the sacraments, because it understands God's grace to be tangibly present in them. Thus, only an ordained person can preside at the sacraments so as to ensure that they are administered properly and those who receive them are getting the full benefit.

Low church traditions (Baptist, Disciples of Christ, etc.), on the other hand have a much more relaxed view of the sacraments, viewing them as symbols of God's grace that will not be negated if they're not done "correctly" (however one defines it) or by the "right" person. These traditions believe the effectiveness of God's grace has much more to do with the sincerity of the receiver, not the clergy person presiding.  Thus, low church traditions have been very eager to make use of the internet, as evidenced by the plethora of evangelical sites that walk one step-by-step through the process of "accepting Christ" and being saved.

So we can see how the practice of administering and receiving sacraments in a virtual environment is problematic for those with a high sacramental theology. Can the invocation of the Holy Spirit (the epiclesis) really be effective from the real world to the virtual world? Can the virtual bread and wine effectively mediate the presence of Christ? Can the grace of taking the sacrament in the virtual world be fully transmitted to the receiver in the real world?

Being a Methodist, I'm somewhere between these two theological extremes. We were born in the Church of England, which is decidedly high church, yet Methodism grew and prospered as a frontier revival movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in America, where the lack of ordained clergy necessitated some decidedly low church practices. So the joke that Methodists are half Episcopalian and half Baptist is actually pretty accurate.

In our tradition we talk about sacraments as "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace", meaning that while we don't believe the bread and wine of communion or the water of baptism are transformed in any way as to become exclusive mediators of God's grace, we do believe in the real presence of God in these elements. It doesn't depend on the character or correct performance of the presider (which is of great relief to me as a pastor), nor is it dependent on the sincerity or knowledge of the receiver (which is of great relief to me as a highly imperfect person), but on God's promise to be with us always. We trust in the mysterious power of God that has been revealed to us in part, and we look forward to when we will  know it fully, to paraphrase 1 Corinthians 13.

So ultimately, I think it is fine to participate in church and even to take communion in Second Life or any other online environment, but I would also encourage someone not to stop there. God's grace is no less real in the virtual realm, but there is no substitute for having a community where one can grow in their discipleship. Such communities can happen online, but actual human interaction can never be fully recreated, no matter how good the technology.

A Call for Change

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and in recognition of the many ways that equal rights for all people are being fought for all over the world today, I am sharing the text of a sermon I preached two Sundays ago. 

The text being referenced is Acts 8:26-40, where Philip meets the Ethiopian eunuch on the road.

For the audio of this sermon, see Episode 7 of The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast.

Annual Conference begins today in Brentwood, and we have a lot of work to do over the next few days. The 2008 General Conference approved a number of amendments to our Constitution, and kind of like amending the US Constitution, these amendments have to be ratified by a majority of the Annual Conferences to take affect.

One of the amendments that is being voted on changes some of the language about inclusiveness in our denomination. The change would state that all people are eligible to become members of the United Methodist Church. Sounds like a no brainer, right? All people are welcome in the church! The thing is, though, that there are a lot of people who are opposed to this amendment, but their argument is a bit hard to understand. The folks who oppose the inclusiveness amendment say that stating that all people are eligible to become members of the church would change the church’s stand on homosexuality. That’s not even remotely true, but that’s what they’re arguing. The amendment saying nothing about sexual orientation, and our social principles remain the same. They’re doing this not because they actually think that the amendment has anything to do with issues of sexual orientation; they’re doing it because they know by brining up the gay issue people will get very emotional and they’ll be able to trick them into voting the way they want.

Recently I received a letter from the Clarksville Ministerial Association inviting me to a meeting where a speaker would be informing of how a hate crimes bill that is now before Congress would supposedly make preaching about homosexuality a hate crime. In case you’re wondering, I didn’t go to the meeting. But once again we see someone bringing up the gay issue as smoke screen to scare people into agreeing with their position. These are just two examples of the way we see dialogue in Christian circles devolving from actually talking about issues into misinformation and fear mongering. And as a pastor I’m forced to ask myself why this is.

Now, before I go on, let me say that I’m not here today to tell you what you should believe about issues of sexual orientation. Good, faithful people who love God and consider the Bible to be authoritative come down on all different sides on these issues. There are those who read certain passages in the Old Testament and believe that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin. And there are those, myself included, who read those same passages, and looking in light of the historical and cultural circumstances in which they were written, conclude that the Bible doesn’t really say anything about what we currently understand as same gender attraction. Like I said, my goal today is not to tell you what to believe, so I bring this up only to say that there are good and faithful people on all sides of these issues.

Since there is genuine disagreement among Christians about these issues, we should have honest and open dialogue about them. What we can’t do is keep things going the way they are now, because it’s absolutely killing us. We’ve retreated into our mutual camps and lob rhetorical bombs and hollow soundbytes at one another, and a lot of people are getting hurt in the process. People who are gay have suffered tremendous emotional abuse at the hands of the church, and many people who see this kind of stuff go on want to have nothing to do with Christianity.

There was a book that came out two years ago called un-Christian, and it talked about the results of a massive study that the George Barna group conducted about people’s perceptions of Christianity. They found that 91% of non-church-goers and 80% of church goers under 40 perceived Christianity as hateful towards gays and lesbians. The perception wasn’t that Christians had a respectful disagreement, it was that they hated gay people. Of course, there have been a lot of people who have been quick to point the finger at the media, saying that the media is liberal and anti-Christian, but you remember what grandma used to say when you pointed the finger at someone else? You’ve got three more fingers pointing back at you. We can’t blame our image problems on anybody but ourselves.

Now I realize it’s a bit strange for me to say “we” and “us” in this conversation, because I’m largely preaching to the choir here. In the two years I’ve been your pastor I’ve never heard anyone engage in any bigoted or hateful speech against any group, and I proudly tell my colleagues that. Not participating in the evils of bigoted and hateful speech is certainly a good start, but we can’t stop there. Again, I can’t tell you what to believe about these issues. What I can say is that the way we as Christians talk about these issues has to change. We have to take a stand against hatred, because hated has no place in the church that bears the name of Jesus Christ.

Since the very beginning, the church has, in its best moments, been able to transcend the differences and misunderstandings that divide us and show us that our common unity as children of God is what really matters. That’s what is happening in the passage we just read from the book of Acts. Here we see Philip being led by the Holy Spirit to a place where he will encounter someone who needs him. This man is a eunuch from Ethiopia, and he’s a very important administrator for the royal family. A eunuch is somebody, probably a slave, who was castrated at a very young age so that he could have this administrative position. In many ancient societies it was believed that a eunuch was able to be trusted around women unsupervised because they wouldn’t have any, let’s say, “improper” motives. The thing about being a eunuch, though, is that while that status enables him to have such a powerful position, it also makes him an outcast to everyone else. In ancient societies that placed a lot of emphasis on male virility, a man who couldn’t reproduce was something less than human. And according to the Laws of Moses, someone who was less than a whole person, someone like a eunuch, couldn’t be fully included in the covenant community of Israel. So even though this Ethiopian man is passionately searching for God, even though he’s deeply immersed himself in the scriptures, even though he’s taken the time and expense to come to Jerusalem to worship, he’s not allowed in. Because of his sexuality, or lack thereof, in the eyes of others, he can at best stand on the sidelines and hope that God’s grace is much bigger than what he has been told.

That hope is answered in his encounter with Philip. Philip explains the scriptures to him, tells him about Jesus, and he believes. So the question the eunuch puts to Philip is a very important one. “Look, here is some water. What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He knows that the answer is probably “because you’re a eunuch, and if I did that I’d be violating the commands of scripture”. But Philip knows that the grace of God made known to us in Jesus Christ is a whole lot bigger than all of these divisions and misunderstandings that keep us apart, even divisions that end up getting codified in religious purity laws.

Philip baptizes the eunuch- an act that would be unthinkable to most Jews, and probably most followers of Jesus at the time. And in doing so Philip proclaims that all of God’s children are welcome in this family. He doesn’t resolve the questions about what he might need to do differently as part of his new life in Christ. Those are questions we see dealt with in great detail later on in Acts. But in this moment, Philip encountered a man who has been told all his life that because of his sexuality he was unacceptable and something less than fully human. So by baptizing this man, Philip says to him, “you are a child of God. You are acceptable. You are loved. You are welcome in this family.”

Today, just like two thousand years ago, we don’t all agree about what constitutes right and wrong actions in many areas of life, sexuality and sexual preference among them. We can and should talk about these issues, but the way we do it has to change. Instead of dialogue full of fear and hatred, half-truths and outright lies, we need to remember that no matter what our differences, each and every person on this earth is a beloved child of God, created in God’s image and that absolutely nothing can change that. I pray that this church will continue to be a place where everyone feels welcome, and that we will have the courage to take a stand against hatred and fear. For when we do that we are truly being the body of Christ in this world.

In the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, Amen.

A Blast from the Past

Imagine my surprise when I checked my email and saw an update from Youth Ministry Today that said this week's featured article was written by me!

It turns out they published an article I wrote for Youthworker Journal back in 2003, when they were still affiliated with Youth Specialties.

It was originally called "An Introduction to Postmodernism for Youth Ministers", but the folks at YM Today have retitled it "Using the 'P' Word: Why Postmodernism Isn't Really A Dirty Word".

I wrote it during my first year of seminary, and if I wrote the article today I would probably do it a little bit differently. But overall I think it holds up pretty well. It was the first feature article I ever got to write, and being only 22 at the time I was really excited to get published.

Here's the link to the article, if you're so inclined. 

I wonder if YM Today owes me some money...

Reflections on Annual Conference

The most recent meeting of the Tennessee Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church wrapped up this past Tuesday. A few thoughts:

Conference occurred immediately after my ten year high school reunion, about which Jessica has blogged some interesting reflections. The reunion being back-to-back with Conference provided an interesting juxtaposition between my past and my future, a juxtaposition I'm still trying to wrap my head around. It will be the subject of a future post.

I was commissioned as a Provisional Elder at the Ordination Service on Sunday night. "Provisional" is the new language in the Discipline, replacing "Probationary". Oddly, enough, the certificate I received at the service said "Probationary". Read into that what you will. The UMC's language has been getting gradually more gracious. In Wesley's day, preachers were "on trial" during their first few years. We're still not where some other denominations are, in terms of language or practice (the Disciples call it "Under Care", for example), but it's progress.

Some have asked me how I felt about being commissioned since I was rejected two years ago. Does it mean more? Is it ruined for me? Do I feel vindicated? The truth is I have no idea. This past year during the process of applying for commissioning, I've felt very conflicted. Is my participation in this system an endorsement of it, even though I disagree with many of the things it has done to hurt people? But on the other hand, my participation grants me access, and thus the ability to influence the system in a positive way. 

I'm not 100% sure where I stand at the moment, but when I knelt in front of the Bishop and he laid his hands on me to pronounce the words of commissioning, I felt a tremendous sense of peace. And that's enough for now.

The next day we spent a marathon session debating and voting the proposed amendments to the Constitution of the UMC. Not surprisingly, Amendment 1 received the most attention. I think there were 25 speeches that addressed it, with a slight majority in favor of those who supported it. Although most of the amendments received a majority of "no" votes (I recorded TN's voting tallies here), there were more "yes" votes for Amendment 1 than I thought there would be. In a conference as conservative as TN, perhaps that is a victory in itself.

As an aside, here is an unofficial tally of how all Annual Conferences that have reported voting results thus far have voted, as reported by the Reconciling Ministries Network.

My friend and colleague Jay Vorhees blogged about considering Amendment 1 after the fact, and concluded  that the amendment addressed a very real problem, but painted with "too broad a legislative brush" and didn't address the real issue: the pastor's authority to determine a person's readiness for church membership. Although Jay supports the amendment, he suggests that the ambiguity on this issue could lead to problems in the future.

While I think Jay's analysis brings up some very good points, I can't help but wonder if Amendment 1 has become about much more than just Amendment 1.

Like so many other cultural milestones, Amendment 1 has come to represent much more than just itself. Rightly or wrongly, the voting on Amendment 1 has become a referendum on how inclusive the United Methodist Church really wants to be. Jay is correct in saying that the amendment is flawed because it is a reaction to a deeply flawed decision of the Judicial Council, but it has come to represent much more than that. For better or worse, the ultimate verdict on Amendment 1 will be statement by our church on our fundamental values as followers of Jesus.

I've blogged, preached, and podcasted about the larger issues at stake here, so I won't rehash all I've said there, except to say that the debate around Amendment 1 has quickly become about what we want inclusivity in the UMC to look like. Most of the speeches in support of and opposing Amendment 1 talked about these larger issues. 

One speech in particular has really stuck with me. The speaker, who opposed the amendment, cited the example of a 6-year-old girl who asked if she could become a member of the church. He told her she couldn't, and that she had to be older and go through confirmation. He concluded that if Amendment 1 passed, he couldn't tell that little girl "no", and that "we would have 8-year-olds being elected as delegates to General Conference and making policy for us" (those were his exact words).

I wanted to (and probably should have) gone to the microphone and told this pastor that if he didn't want that 6-year-old that my church would take her. In the UMC we have two different categories of membership- preparatory members and professing members. Preparatory membership is what that 6-year-old girl should have been offered, rather than being told she didn't know enough.

I cite this example not to insult a fellow pastor, but to show how much of the opposition to Amendment 1 has been rooted in fear based rhetoric. What would happen if we let just anybody in? Well, Jesus did that, and the early church did that. And it resulted in a worldwide movement where it became clear that God was in control, and that authority couldn't be contained within an institution or a small group of decision makers. Maybe that's the real fear: that we'd lose control. I, for one, am perfectly happy to give control over to the God whose grace is offered to all people.

This has been a rather long post, and I thank you for having read this far. I will revisit many of the events and issues of the past week as I have more time to reflect on them and try to wrap my head around them. These are my thoughts for now, and I welcome any feedback you have. God bless.

Podcast Episode 7- All God's Children

In this episode, Matt presents a sermon he recently preached, "All God's Children", on a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United Methodist Church, which leads into a discussion of how the Christian community dialogues about issues of sexuality and sexual orientation, and a plea for civility in this dialogue. The sermon is based on Acts 8:26-40.

You can listen online through Podbean, who is kind enough to host us.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Any and all comments are encouraged. Enjoy!

TN Conference Voting

The voting results on the Proposed Amendments to the Constitution of the United Methodist Church from the Tennessee Annual Conference have just been released. Bishop Wills just read them aloud in session, so the totals I have listed below were typed in as he read them, and are accurate as far as I am aware. If somebody copied down different numbers we will have to check the official tally.

The voting totals from each annual conference are tabulated and added to the results from other annual conferences. There must be a 2/3 majority of votes from all annual conferences across the connection for these amendments to be adopted.

Here is a link to a PDF file of the proposed amendments.

The amendments were voted on individually, but allocated into five groups for the purposes of discussion on the floor of the conference. I have them listed below as such:

Group #- brief description
Amendment # (yes, no)

Group 1- Proposed Constitutional Amendments on the Worldwide Nature of the Church
4 (176, 458)
10 (177 yes, 466 no)
23 (176 yes, 456 no)
26 (173, 461)

Group 2- Proposed Constitutional Amendments on the Worldwide Nature of the Church (related name changes)
3 (177, 453)
5 (173, 456)
7 (176, 457)
11 (172, 457)
12 (176, 454)
13 (174, 458)
14 (177, 455)
16 (174, 457)
18 (178, 451)
20 (176, 454)
21 (177, 455)
24 (174, 457)
25 (178, 453)
27 (176, 455)
28 (177, 456)
29 (174, 454)
30 (171, 455)
31 (172, 454)
32 (170, 449)

Group 3- Amendment 1 Dealing with Paragraph 4 (Inclusivity)
1 (285, 340)

Group 4- Amendment 19 Dealing with Paragraph 35 (expansion of voting rights of Local pastors, Associate and Provisional Members)
19 (503, 138)

Group 5- Miscellaneous Amendments
2 (216, 409)
6 (222, 405)
8 (444, 189)
9 (422, 205)
15 (307, 323)
17 (374, 250)
22 (447, 176)

I will post again within 24 hours (Conference is still going on) with some thoughts on the voting and a few anecdotes from the discussion.

Thoughts on the DC Holocaust Museum Shooting

By now we've all seen the sad news about the shooting yesterday at the US Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Many of us have taken time to pray for the family of the slain guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns, and we shook our heads because we can't begin to understand how an 88 year-old World War II veteran and MENSA member, James W. von Brunn, could be so hateful and violent.

Over the past 24 hours, I've read and overheard some people say that it was a shame that the shooter is still alive, while an innocent security guard is dead.

With all due respect, while I understand and share the outrage behind those statements, I couldn't disagree more.

The image that is repeatedly being broadcast on the cable news channels of a team of paramedics working to stabilize von Brunn, shows us that the majority of these paramedics were African-Americans. Isn't that image alone a powerful refutation of this man's racist, hateful ideology?

Furthermore, the fact that von Brunn is alive means he will be charged with murder, and we can be certain that the national media will cover every detail of his trial. This trial is an opportunity to shed light on ideologies of hate, an opportunity to prove to the nation and the world that love and equality are superior to prejudice and hatred.

I remember when the US Holocaust Museum was first being built, and there were more than a few people that questioned why taxpayer money should be spent on a museum commemorating something that happened on another continent and addressing issues that they claimed were "over".

Yesterday's shooting shows us why the Holocaust Museum is necessary. We must never forget that violence motivated by hatred is real, and that it must be opposed.

The "death" of the emerging church conversation

It seems that the latest fad in the blogosphere has been to debate the state of the emerging church conversation. Specifically, regarding the seeming lack of direction at Emergent Village, some have been quick to declare the entire emerging church conversation "over".

Examples of such claims can be found here and here, while alternate viewpoints can be found here and here.

Given that people much smarter and more eloquent than me have already weighed in on this issue, here are my thoughts.

It's a bit of a misnomer to declare Emergent Village or the larger emerging church conversation "dead" because from the beginning, this whole conversation has not played by the standard rules of what we usually think of as "movements".

For example, most movements in the modern era have tended to coalesce around a particular individual or group of individuals who come to symbolize the values and goals of the movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the symbol of the Civil Rights movement. Jerry Falwell was the symbol of the Religious Right/"Moral Majority" movement. Reaching farther back, Martin Luther was the symbol of the Protestant movement. 

While some folks have tried to cast Brian McLaren and/or Tony Jones as the leader and symbol of the "emergent movement", both gentlemen have actively (and wisely, in my opinion) resisted such labels because the emergent conversation would be ill served by playing by such rules.

Instead of being a "movement" as such, the emerging church conversation has been an attempt to shine the spotlight on some thinking and practices that are emerging (hence the term) in different places and share some common characteristics. 

These characteristics include the tendency to question long held assumptions, deep suspicion of authority while not rejecting it outright, a fascination with ancient thinking and practices long forgotten by the modern evangelical movement (which generally does play by the rules of a "movement"), and an emphasis on conversation and learning from one another as opposed to promoting a set list of ideas. 

A couple years back there was some conversation about an emergent "statement of faith/orthodoxy", that thinkers like Brian and Tony resisted, because that would be playing by a set of rules that the whole conversation had consciously rejected since the beginning.

If anything, the emerging church conversation is deeply eschatological, in the sense that it anticipates something that has begun, but has not yet fully arrived. It acknowledges the stirrings of something new and significant, and resists bracketing it with definitions and statements of faith because the most significant work is yet to come.

So is the emerging church conversation "dead"? No, not by any stretch of the imagination. 

It's going through an ebb and flow, yes, maybe something akin to Martin Luther hiding out at Augsburg and people wondering if he was alive, but it's not over. The best is yet to come, which has been the idea the whole time anyway.

Stay tuned...

From Either/Or to Both/And

After listening to and reading through the transcript of President Obama's speech in Cairo today, I have to say that I was very impressed. Perhaps this is not much of a shock, since I identify as a Christian Progressive and tend to like Obama (even though I don't agree with all of his policies). What really impressed me was not so much the policy positions he put forth as what the speech reveals about the way he thinks and approaches complex issues. It is a way of thinking that I think is largely shared by most people, and yet is tragically absent from our public discourse.

This kind of thinking could be labeled as "Both/And" thinking. It is the kind of thinking that rejects the idea that all problems have only two solutions, and that these solutions are the polar opposite of one another. I supposed you could call this other type "Either/Or" thinking. "Both/And" thinking can see and appreciate many perspectives, and is not afraid to talk about the merits of postions with which they disagree. "Both/And" thinking's primary concern is not proving why one's position is always correct and the opposing position is always wrong. Instead, it attempts to put different strands of thought in dialogue with one another to achieve the best possible result.

President Obama's speech strikes me as an impressive display of "Both/And" thinking because it actively rejects the polarizing, "Either/Or" nature of the way our foreign relations were conducted during the last administration (as an aside, just as I don't agree with all of President Obama's positions, I didn't always disagree with all of President Bush's positions). In addressing the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, President Obama acknowledged that both Israel and Palestine have done wrong and caused suffering to the other, and that both sides have to make compromises for lasting peace to be achieved.

I don't think I've heard an American President ever criticize Israel in public remarks. I seriously doubt that all of the Presidents since Truman have thought that Israel never does anything wrong, but I believe they were keenly aware of the "Either/Or" nature of most political discourse and were afraid of what would happen if they ever dared challenge such polarizing thinking. Uncritical "Either/Or" thinking is largely responsible for many of the moral disgraces of the last decade, especially the use of torture against enemy combatants. One either unquestioningly supported the Bush administration's prosecution of the War on Terror, or they were unpatriotic and didn't love America.

Perhaps in another post I'll talk about how I see "Either/Or" thinking's destructive power at play in religious dialogue as well. For now I'll just say that regardless of our political affiliation, I hope we can all look to President Obama's speech today as a great example of "Either/Or" thinking and how it demonstrates a positive way for us to move forward and work out our differences together.

Do people care about theology?

One of the comments I often hear from fellow clergy, especially those who are heavily invested in church planting/growth, is the idea that "people don't care about theology". In other words, they just want to be Christian and actually live out their faith.

While I agree with their sentiment, I wonder if the statement is a bit misleading. Perhaps stepping back and considering the definition of our terms will help.

With apologies to my friends with copious amounts of graduate education, I don't believe theology is restricted to the ivory tower of academia. Everyone who thinks about God is a theologian, regardless of whether they've torn their hair out trying to understand the Summa Theologica or Church Dogmatics.

So if everyone is a theologian, then it doesn't make sense to say that people don't care about theology. What I think people mean when they say that is that people don't care about doctrine, more specifically, abstract doctrinal statements that are used to determine who is acceptable and who is not in the eyes of a particular faith community.

For example, most people in my congregation neither knows nor cares about the controversy over the filioque (whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone or from the Father and the Son together): the doctrinal straw that broke the camel's back in the Great Schism of 1054. Most people I talk to are even tired of the modern doctrinal battles over biblical authority.

So while most people may not be too invested in doctrine (although it's certainly important), people do care deeply about theology because theology is how we understand our faith. How we respond when we learn that our government tortures people it considers "enemy combatants" is a theological issue. How we respond when a doctor who ran a women's clinic, and whose services included abortions, is murdered in a church is a theological issue. How we reconcile our belief in a loving and sovereign God with the reality of a broken and tragic world is a theological issue.

Am I being too picky and parsing words too much? Maybe. But I believe that people who understand themselves to be theologians who have something significant to contribute to the community of faith on our journey of understanding and following God will become more actively involved in their discipleship. And isn't making disciples the whole point of the church?

If the cause of discipleship is advanced by the work of theology, then we should care deeply.

Thoughts on Aldersgate Day

Today is Aldersgate Day for those of us who follow in the tradition of Mr. Wesley. On May 24, 1738, Wesley had his heart warming experience at Aldersgate that would come to influence Wesley's view of our continual need for salvation, as opposed to the single salvation experience theology advocated by our contemporary evangelical brethren.

To commemorate Aldersgate Day I'm reposting something I wrote a few months back that came out of my attempt to better understand Wesley's Aldersgate experience, particularly the role that Martin Luther's writings played:

One of the most common jokes among Methodist preachers is about John Wesley's Aldersgate experience. After coming back from a stint as a missionary in America that can't be described as anything but a total failure, Mr. Wesley was quite depressed and wondering what God was up to.

In his journal Wesley describes going to a meeting of a religious society on Aldersgate Street in London (which no longer exists, and is now the entrance to a shopping mall), where Luther's Preface to Romans was being read. Wesley writes that as he sat there he had a sensation of his heart being "strangely warmed", and the claims that it was the first time in his life he felt completely assured of God's love and grace.

The joke, of course, is that Luther's Preface to Romans is probably the least heart warming document one can read. Some say this is evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit, because no one would feel warm and fuzzy listening to Luther!

I've read Luther's Preface to Romans a handful of times, and that's the conclusion I've come to every time. But recently I decided to read it again because I'm teaching a short term Disciple class at Bethlehem on Romans, and I became curious again what it was that so affected Wesley.

I saw something new this time. I do not now, nor will I probably ever experience Martin Luther's writings as heart warming, but I'm beginning to see how John Wesley might have. The reader understands, in no uncertain terms, that Luther believes they are a wretched, dirty sinner. So whose heart would this warm? Only a person who already felt like a wretched, dirty sinner!

I think John Wesley found tremendous hope in Martin Luther's writings because they gave voice to what he was already experiencing. Wesley himself may not have been able to describe it, but Luther was. So when Luther gets around to the good news (such as it is), Wesley was already hooked. Luther accurately described the problem as Wesley experienced it, so Luther's solution would be very heartwarming, indeed.

This is just further proof that God's grace works in all kinds of different ways, and just because I may not understand it doesn't make it any less real. I've certainly felt unworthy of God's grace, but probably not to the extent that Luther or Wesley did. So the way they articulate God's grace in the midst of our Sin is probably not going to resonate with me the way it will with someone who shares Luther and Wesley's anxieties.

I still don't experience Luther's Preface to Romans as heartwarming at all, but I can appreciate how someone else like John Wesley would.

Podcast Episode 6- Nationalist Religion

A new episode of the Truth As Best I Know It Podcast is up!

In this episode, "Nationalist Religion", Matt and Jessica reflect on the release of the "American Patriot's Bible" and issues that arise at the intersection of religion and national loyalties.

You can see the new Bible mentioned in the episode here.

Please feel free to comment on any issues raised in this episode in the comment section.

You can click on the title above to listen online, or listen at Podbean, where our podcast is hosted.

And, of course, you can (and should!) subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

A Trip to the Mailbox

I took a break from sermon writing this afternoon to go get the mail, and in the midst of all the junk mail (seriously, we have to stop this tree holocaust) I found two interesting pieces of mail. 

One was my renewed passport. The other was a letter from my District Superintendent, confirming that I was being appointed to Bethlehem UMC again for the coming conference year.

This struck me as a tad ironic, because although my passport allows me to go anywhere in the world, I'm staying right where I am for the time being.

Don't get me wrong, I love my congregation and I'm very glad to get to serve them for another year. I just thought it was kind of amusing.

PS- for those who are wondering, the next episode of The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast will probably be recorded later today and should be up sometime this weekend.

Funding for Metro General Hospital

Yesterday I was very privileged to take a tour of Nashville's Metro General Hospital with several dozen other pastors. The tour was organized by my friend, Jay Voorhees, who has been leading the effort to get Nashville's Metro Council to fully fund the hospital so that they don't have to cut back on services for the uninsured. You can find out more about the cause at a website Jay has set up, Nashvillians for Metro General.

I went on this tour having mentally prepared myself to see some pretty heartbreaking stuff. As a pastor I've visited a number of health care facilities run by tax dollars, and it's never been a pretty sight. Whenever state and federal budgets get tight, these are the first places to lose funds since there is usually no one to fight for them in budget meetings. So publicly run health care facilities are often underfunded, understaffed, and the staff they do have are overworked and underpaid. Thus the quality of care is often very poor. Whenever I've needed hospital care I've been very fortunate to be able to choose a private hospital like Vanderbilt or Gateway, but that's only because I have very good health insurance.

I went to Metro General expecting to see what I've described above, so you can imagine I was blown away by what I saw. The hospital has clean, well maintained facilities and is staffed by people who were extremely friendly and very dedicated to their work. Most of the first floor is taken up by various clinics that offer free services for the uninsured: everything from mammograms to orthopedic care to cardiological services. They even have an infusion center where people can receive cancer treatments in comfortable, private spaces.

At the end of the tour we had the opportunity to hear from the administrators of Metro General. I was amazed to learn that their budget is a fraction of what a place like Vanderbilt has to work with, and yet the level of care is just as good. Even more amazing is that Metro General has no reserve funds and no line of credit, which is unheard of for a multi-million dollar organization.

If Metro General's funding is cut, it will have to seriously curtail and eliminate services it provides to the poor, homeless, and others who don't have adequate health insurance. The 47 million uninsured people in this country have no access to preventative medicine other than free services such as the ones that are provided at Metro General. As a result, they end up in the emergency rooms of other hospitals once their conditions, which would have been treatable had they been diagnosed earlier, are beyond the point of no return. The free services offered by Metro General save thousands of lives every year. To cut the funding would ensure that these services would be eliminated, effectively sentencing thousands of people to early deaths. 

Adequately funding Metro General Hospital isn't just a nice thing to do if we can. It is a moral imperative.

I'm no longer a legal resident of Davidson County, so this blog is the biggest contribution I can make to the effort. To all Nashville residents who read this, please take a moment to send your council member an email and tell them not to cut Metro General's funding. You can do so quickly through the City Council's website. There is a rally at the Metro Courthouse at 4:30pm on Thursday, May 21, just before the budget hearing gets underway. Please come if you can to support health care for Nashville's uninsured through Metro General Hospital.

Podcast Episode 5- Better People?

In this episode Matt and Jessica discuss a Pew Forum study that suggests that participation in organized religion makes people nicer individuals and better citizens. We wonder aloud why that is, how that might actually look, if there are exceptions, and possible negative uses of this information.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

You can click the title above to download the episode, or listen to it in the player below:

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Participating in the Civil Religion

image courtesy of the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle

(Notice how on the right side of the banner there is an image of the continental US with the word "God" in the middle. I'm assuming they didn't mean that America is God, but it's still a bit strange. Make of it what you will...)

Last Thursday was the National Day of Prayer, and I was asked to be part of the day-long observance at the Clarksville YMCA. Pastors of all different stripes (I'm assuming that non-Christian clerics were not invited, which is a shame) would take the microphone in the gym and pray for fifteen minutes. My particular time slot was in the middle of the afternoon, and there were about two dozen folks there. I left most of the time for silent prayer, because I figure if someone wants to hear me yammer on for fifteen minutes straight they'll come to my church.

Normally I get very uncomfortable about things like the National Day of Prayer. Not because I think prayer is a bad idea- I think prayer is great! Nor because I'm not a fan of our nation- I love America. (I don't like everything my government does, but I'm thankful for the freedom to say so without fear of persecution). Nor is it because I don't think we should pray for our nation- it needs a lot of prayer.

The idea is great. But the rhetoric about America being a "Christian nation" often implies that what is good for America is good for Christianity, and vice-versa. That makes me uncomfortable because I don't believe that this is always the case.

Hearing some of my clergy colleagues pray during their fifteen minute slots, I often heard phrases like "Lord, let your will/justice be done in this nation". While I don't know for sure what these individuals meant by that, I often hear such phrases coupled with ideas like "returning this nation to its former glory", which was presumably before sex, drugs, rock and roll, abortion, gay marriage, and Hillary Clinton.

But I have to wonder, do we really want God's justice in our nation? If God's will really is fulfilled, we might be in trouble here in the USA. Reading the Hebrew Prophets, one is lead to believe that God's idea of justice is everyone having and equal share of the resources, and an end to inequality and the idols of materialism. In Mary's Song in Luke (often called the Magnificat), she praises the God who lifts up the humble and brings down the lofty.

Do we really want that in America? We live in a country that has about five percent of the world's population, but we use a quarter of the earth's resources. According to the My Ecological Footprint Quiz, if everyone on the planet lived like I do, we would need 7.62 Earths! And I'm fairly conscious about my consumption compared to a lot of people I know!

I'm not trying to dump on my country or anything. My point is that we should be careful what we pray for. If God's justice was truly done in our country, then we'd be knocked down several pegs. We'd have to stop thinking that we are somehow better than everyone else on Earth be forced to live very simply, so that the 3 billion people who live on less than $1 a day would have a chance to live into what we consider "old age".

Let's be careful what we pray for, America. We just might get it, and we might not like it.

A Mother's Day Tribute

This is technically a date late, but yesterday was so busy it was hard to find a few spare minutes to blog.

So I'd like to wish a Happy Mother's Day to the best mom I know, who also happens to be the newest mom I know. She loves her daughter more than anything in the world and spends every moment with her she can. She's also a very successful career woman who is a great role model, showing her daughter that you can do anything you want. And on top of all that she's extremely beautiful!

The only complaint anyone could make against her is her choice of husbands, but that's just proof she's charitable, too.

So Happy Mother's Day, Jessica. You are the greatest wife and mother in the world, and I'm very proud to be your partner in life. I love you!

PS- Jessica posted cute video of Kate on her blog yesterday, which you should definitely check out.

Backtracking

It seems that in a post I wrote recently on how my church dealt with the Swine Flu issue, I accidentally contracted foot-in-mouth disease.

I was being a bit silly and sarcastic in describing certain ways of doing communion, and attempting to use that as a contrast to what I believe to be theologically better practices of the Lord's Supper.

However, it came across another way. Some folks thought I was being disrespectful of my congregation. That was certainly not my intent, and I apologize to anybody who was offended by my comments.

If anybody wants to talk about it (or anything else, for that matter), please feel free to contact me directly.

Grace and Peace,

Matt...

The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast- Episode 4: Church Shopping

After a number of technical difficulties, the latest episode of The Truth As Best I Know It podcast is available for mass consumption.

In this episode, Matt and Jessica debate the merits and drawbacks of the "church shopping" phenomenon, with the requisite straying into rabbit holes of other topics.

Now there are a few more options for listening.

If you want to download the file from this site, click the post title or below.

Download this episode (right click and save)

If you want to subscribe to our podcast in iTunes, click here.

And if you just want to check it out while you're here,

Thanks to the good folks over at Podbean for hosting us.

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The Danger of Supporting Torture

I saw an article today that disturbed me and made me angry, and yet at the same time did not surprise me in the least.

According to a survey from the Pew Research Center, Americans are more likely to think that torture  is acceptable if they go to church than if they don't. 

(Call it "enhanced interrogation" all you want, but the US defined these techniques as torture when they were used against our soldiers in WWII.)

This is a sad commentary on how much of mainstream Christianity has sold out to the political right. Because right wing figures like George W. Bush laced their speeches with enough Christian buzzwords and signed on to the Religious Right's two-pronged political agenda (opposition to abortion and gay marriage), many Christians supported him without looking further into his positions, policies, or actions. 

Because this particular political faction has passed the litmus test, many Christians have turned a willful bind eye to the abuses of said faction, and even after they are out of office, they go on defending said abuses.

The problem, of course, is that the abuses of the Bush administration fly in the face of the commandments of Jesus Christ- the man that George W. Bush claimed was his "favorite philosopher" during his run for the presidency.

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44) would seem to preclude using torture against anyone, even people who may have engaged in direct attacks against our country. Jesus prayed for those who murdered him, even in the moment that they were engaging in practices that would be considered torture by any modern standard.

At the risk of proof-texting, I can't help but think of Matthew 7:21, where Jesus says, "not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord' will enter the Kingdom of God, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." 

We can give all the lip-service we want to the name of Jesus, but when we sanction the cruel treatment of God's children in the defense of the security of the nation-state, we are giving our first loyalty to something that is much less than God. The Bible has a word for that: idolatry. And the two major complaints of the Hebrew prophets were idolatry and injustice. We're clearly guilty on both counts.

My own denomination, the United Methodist Church (which is currently guilty of numerous injustices, by the way), has come out resolutely against torture. We have issued a number of emphatic statements condemning these practices.

I pray that we will, in time, repent of our idolatrous love for the nation-state and return to the kind of love for God that leads us to walk in the ways of peace, love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Then we will truly be doing the will of God.

Hunger und Durst

I was supposed to do this yesterday, but world hunger is still a problem today, and would be so even if I had posted this when I said I would.

A few quick facts from the UN World Food Program

-25,000 people die every day from starvation, malnutrition, and hunger related issues

-Every six seconds a child dies from hunger (that means several have died while you've been reading this post)

-The countries with the most hunger related deaths are also the ones most affected by HIV/AIDS

Some folks much smarter than I have crunched the numbers and estimate that if the United States reduced its defense budget by 10%, we would have enough money to produce an adequate food supply and distribute it to the entire world.

Sadly, we know that's not going to happen, but it does show us that the problem of world hunger is one that can be solved. One organization that's doing a lot to solve the disease and not just the symptoms is Heifer International. They raise animals and give them to people in developing nations. They also teach them how to use these animals to build sustainable industries, thus empowering them to feed themselves.

The way Heifer structures charitable giving is really cool, too. You don't just give a dollar amount. You sponsor a flock of chicks, a goat, a sheep, or a cow. You can do shares of some of the higher dollar animals, since they can be pricey. Making the solutions tangible has enabled Heifer to be one of the most successful non-profits in the world today.

While I've got your attention, there's another cool way you can help solve some of these issues. The same countries that are affected by hunger issues and HIV/AIDS usually also suffer from access to clean water. Shawn Wood, one of Jessica's authors, created a campaign called 5 Days in May, where people pledge to drink nothing but water for 5 days and donate the amount they would have spent on drinks to Water Missions. 

Jessica and I are participating, and we haven't calculated the amount yet, but we'll probably be depressed at how much we spend on coffee alone.

If you only take one thing from this post, let it be this: the suffering caused by hunger issues and lack of access to clean water is horrible, but we have the resources to solve the problem. I'm trying very hard to be part of the solution. I hope you will, too.

Bloggers Unite!

On April 29, over 500 bloggers will be writing posts about world hunger and soliciting donations for Heifer International. If you'd like your blog to participate in this event, go to the Bloggers Unite website.

Podcast- Episode 3

A new episode of The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast is now online.

In Episode 3, Matt responds to Maxie Dunnam’s objections to proposed changes in the Constitution of the United Methodist Church dealing with issues of inclusivity.

You can also find the podcast on iTunes.

Links

The full version of the video excerpted in the podcast

The General Conference record of the amendment legislation in question.

A list of the amendments being voted on at this year's Annual Conferences.

More info on un-Christian

Why We're Baptizing Our Infant Daughter

Kate is being baptized this coming Sunday. We're very honored to have Rev. Dr. M. Douglas Meeks, a mentor and professor of mine from my seminary days at Vanderbilt, coming to preside at the baptism.

Over the years I've heard the argument more than a few times from my Baptist friends (and from a few Methodists who think they're Baptist) that infant baptism isn't biblical, valid, or anything else remotely good. (Jessica and I did a podcast about this issue last week, and Jessica wrote a really great blog post on the subject, too)

A cursory glance at the history of the Christian faith presents a different picture, however. In the 4th century St. Augustine (in one of his only major contributions to Christian theology that didn't turn out horribly) helped answer the question of what to do with people who came back into the Orthodox fold from a schismatic group called the Donatists. Augustine determined that the efficacy of baptism lay not in the holiness of the priest performing the sacrament (ex opere operato), but in the holiness of God.

In my own tradition, we view baptism as a sign of prevenient grace (a term Mr. Wesley learned from Jacob Arminius), which is symbolic of God's claim upon us. Kate doesn't understand the concept of God at three months old, but God's love for her and God's claim upon her life are no less real. In the same way she doesn't understand the concept of family, but she's no less a part of our family. Later she will be able to understand and claim for herself what has been true about her before she was even born.

Furthermore, baptizing an infant is an act of the church in which we are making a covenant to raise the child in the faith, provide a Christian example for them to emulate, and support them as they grow in their spiritual life. We are also reaffirming our covenant with one another and dedicating ourselves to emulating the divine life of perichoresis we see in the Holy Trinity.

So come to Bethlehem UMC this Sunday at 10am and celebrate with us!

Podcast- Episode 2

The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast Episode 2: Baptism is live online now. Thanks to the folks at Podbean for hosting the podcast.

You can also find us on iTunes.

Enjoy the episode and feel free to post comments on this blog.

Constitutional Changes

At the 2008 General Conference, about which I blogged quite a bit (hit the archives from April 2008 for my commentary), there were a number of changes to the Constitution of the UMC (found in our Book of Discipline) debated and adopted. Just like changing the Constitution of the United States, one entity can't make the changes on its own. The changes must be ratified by a majority (I can't remember if it's a simple majority or two-thirds) of Annual Conferences and the Council of Bishops.

Most of these changes have to do with altering terminology to put the Conferences outside of the US on par with the US Conferences, eliminating "jurisdictional" and "central" conferences, and making them all into "regional conferences". These are basically clusters of Annual Conferences in a given region, in which bishops are elected and itinerate. These seem to be a good idea because it gets rid of the notion that the conferences outside the US are somehow of lesser importance. We are a global church and this seems like the right move.

The Constitutional change I'm not so sure about, however, is the first one listed in the PDF linked above. The amendment would alter the language in paragraph 4, which concerns the inclusiveness in the church. The language of "without regard to race, color, national origin, status, or economic condition" has been removed and replaced with simply "all persons".

I am of two minds on this one. On the one hand this could be a good thing, since a number of rather intolerant individuals have used the aforementioned paragraph's lack of the phrase "sexual orientation" as an excuse to deny membership to persons of differing sexual orientation. I believe sexual orientation to be covered by "status", but that has never been tested in a case before the Judicial Council, to my knowledge. So the new phrase, "all persons", could make it harder for those who want to pick and choose who they want to let in to do so.

However, some other language in the new paragraph could possibly be used to exclude people based on a pastor or a congregation's particular beliefs. The sentence in question is "all persons, upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith and relationship in Jesus Christ, shall be eligible to become professing members in any local church in the connection."

What does it mean for a person to "take vows declaring the Christian faith and relationship in Jesus Christ"? For me it would be sufficient for a person to answer "yes" to the questions put forth in the liturgy of welcoming in our Book of Worship. But other pastors might say that if one does not repent of certain sins (as defined by the pastor, of course), that they are not truly able to "take vows declaring the Christian faith", and thus exclude them from membership in the church. This is exactly what happened in the case in Virginia where the pastor wouldn't admit a person because they were gay, because the pastor claimed they hadn't repented of their sin.

Hence my confusion. What should we make of this proposed change to our Constitution? Will greater inclusiveness be achieved, or will this new language end up being another weapon in the hands of those who do not want our church to be inclusive?

Discuss...

Podcast Update

The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast is now available on iTunes.

A new episode will be up in the next couple days.

The "Post-Christian" America

Last week,  Newsweek had a really interesting feature on "The End of Christian America".

The author of the article was not the one contending that such a thing was ending (or that it ever existed, which is debatable). The person making the claims was none other than Al Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. (Side note: every person I've ever met who went to Southern makes sure to say whether they were there before or after Mohler and the fundamentalist takeover of Southern and the SBC)

There were lots of interesting issues raised in the article, but one quote from Mohler near the beginning really stood out to me. "A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us. The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture."

Post-modern. Post-Christian. Post-Western. These are three distinct terms that are each in their own way problematically loaded, needing to be examined (perhaps I'll take a stab at doing just that in a future post). And while they are three distinct things, I can't help but wondering if Al Mohler is simply using them to say the same thing three times.

Al Mohler was one of the major forces in the rise of the Religious Right. Along with figures like James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, Mohler was incredibly successful at perpetuating a metanarrative to explain the problems of the late twentieth century. The metanarrative went like this: there was a time when things were good, when people believed and practiced what the Bible taught, resulting in an idyllic, "Ozzie and Harriet"-esque picture of the 1950s (which, of course, never really existed). But then along came the 60s, with its sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and the world went to hell in a hand-basket. The solution? Return to this earlier time and its values, and everything will go back to "normal" (whatever that is).

There are a million different versions of this metanarrative, of course, but it's a pretty consistent message that animates this particular brand of evangelicalism. So I can't help but wonder if Mohler's above quote is another variation on this particular metanarrative?

It's especially puzzling when one considers how Mohler is using the terms in contrast to the "Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium". Exactly what was this consensus?

Christianity isn't going away. We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of certain forms of Christianity, which is probably what scares Mohler and his constituency to death. But the birth of new forms of faith and practice is nothing new. A person from the eleventh century (the time in which this alleged Judeo-Christian consensus was formed) wouldn't recognize Christianity as it exists today, and a first century Christian wouldn't have recognized eleventh century Christianity. It's safe to assume that if we got into a time machine and went forward a thousand years we wouldn't recognize the way they practice Christianity.

The good news that Al Mohler and his cohort seem to forget is that God is not dependent on any particular cultural forms. God has spoken to people in every time and every place, and people have found ways to worship God and try to follow God's will for their lives in every society that has ever existed. Perhaps it's time we quit worshipping the idol we've made out of a society that never even existed and started looking for how God is speaking to the world we actually live in.

We're Podcasting!

Introducing the brand new The Truth As Best I Know It Podcast.

Just like the blog, the podcast explores how the Christian faith works in the lives of twenty first century people.

In the first episode, "Words, Words, Words", Matt and Jessica discuss the role of language, particularly certain religious buzzwords, in people's faith today. Have certain words and phrases outlived their usefulness or is there room to reclaim them into new contexts?

In this episode we reference a book by Susan Isaacs, Angry Conversations With God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir. You can find more information about the book and purchase it here.

Enjoy the podcast and leave any comments, questions, or suggestions for future episodes here on the blog.

(PS- we're working on getting the podcast on iTunes. If you're a tech savvy person and have any suggestions as to how to make the recording better, please share them.)

Same Sex Marriage, Democracy, and a flashback to High School Civics

There have been a couple of big news items lately on the same-sex marriage front. The Vermont state legislature overrode the governor's veto of a bill allowing same sex couples to enjoy the same rights and legal protections that heterosexual couples get. This comes only weeks after Iowa's state Supreme Court overturned a ban on same sex marriage on constitutional grounds. This has given hope to those of us who support equal rights; hope that was sorely needed after California voters passes Proposition 8 with the help of lots of outside money. (California's state Supreme Court may yet overturn the ban.)

Those who oppose equality for same-sex couples normally find their rationale in a particular reading of the Bible that assumes parts of the Levitical purity codes are authoritative, even as they enjoy pulled pork barbecue, shrimp cocktails, and polyester fabrics. But in their attempt to hold together the Reagan-era alliance with economic conservatives, they often couch their objections in "principles of democracy". They argue that the people have the right to decide what should and should not be allowed in society, and that it violates the Constitution when courts overrule the will of the majority. (No such luck in Vermont, though.)

(Quick disclaimer: yes, I'm a preacher and some folks get very nervous when preachers get political. But I also hold a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science. Take that for what it's worth.)

To that objection, allow me to take us on a trip back in time to High School Civics/Government class. One of the first things we learned in said class was a concept called "Checks and Balances", where each branch of government is able to keep the others from going too crazy. The President is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, but Congress has to declare war (at least, until the War Powers Act was passed). Congress makes laws but the President has to sign them. Most folks understand and appreciate that, but we tend to forget about the Judiciary Branch of government. It is this branch of government's job to interpret the Constitution, and they are empowered by said document to nullify laws and other actions of the other two branches of government if they are found to be in violation. Thus, the power of the people's elected representatives is checked and balanced.

The best example is when the Supreme Court ruled on the case of Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education in 1954, reversing its own ruling in 1896 in the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson and declaring that racial segregation was unconstitutional. The decision in the Brown case was against the will of the majority of people in the United States at the time, but it was the right thing to do.

So before we start whining about "activist judges" and "legislating from the bench", let's take a step back and remember that it is the job of the Judicial Branch of government to check and balance the power of majority rule.

On the other hand, if you want to argue against same-sex marriage using the Bible, go ahead and do so. I would argue that there is nothing about the issue in the Bible, but that is a subject for another post. By the way, democracy is never endorsed anywhere in the Bible, and majority rule is treated with no small amount of contempt, particularly in the Old Testament.

Thoughts on Calling and Vocation

This past Wednesday I was honored to give the keynote address for the Center for Faith and Vocation's annual dinner at Butler University, my alma mater. I can't post my speech on the blog, since it included some anecdotes that are not my intellectual property, but I would like to reflect on one idea I shared there:

The folks at the Center asked me to speak on the subjects of calling and vocation. Recently I've reread Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain, and while I love the thoughtfulness of his prose and the gentleness of spirit that comes with the contemplative life, I've realized how much I used to think like Father Thomas when it comes to the subject of calling, and how much good evolving away from that type of thinking has done me.

Thomas Merton reflected back on his early years through the lens of a drastic and profound conversion to Catholicism. In fact, he wrote his autobiography in his cell at the Abbey of Gethsemani. So his take on the subject of one's calling from God is completely formed by his robustly Augustinian form of Roman Catholicism. Augustine owed a great deal intellectually to the "pagan philosopher" (his term, not mine) Plato, from whom Augustine learned to be very dualistic in his view of the world.

Augustine's Platonic dualism led him to define pretty much everything in oppositional, either/or categories. Things were either good or evil. One either pursued the things of body or the things of the soul. And one either had a specific, definite calling from God to a vocation, or one did not. Thomas Merton shared this view of calling and it is evident throughout his writing.

I remember thinking for a long time that I had to figure out whether God was calling me or not. That's how I heard it talked about in the church and by most people. But in college a professor of mine introduced me to Paul Tillich by having me read Dynamics of Faith, where Tillich refutes the idea of faith being a dualistic, either/or proposition. Everyone has faith in something, according to Tillich, and the question is in what we are ultimately concerned.

So I began to think that if faith isn't an either/or proposition, maybe calling isn't either. Maybe it wasn't a question of whether God is calling me or not, but a question of what God is calling me to. Specifically, when it comes to the question of vocation, what kind of job will allow me to live with integrity to who God is calling me to be?

A colleague of mine once told me about a special service at his church when he was growing up where anybody who felt God was calling them could come up for a special blessing. Previously he had talked about his sense of calling with his pastor, telling him that he felt called to serve God, but he knew preaching wasn't for him. So when he came forward for the blessing, his pastor turned him away, saying, "God only calls people to the preaching ministry." This person later ended up getting ordained as a deacon in the United Methodist Church and served as the Director of the National Christian Educators Fellowship. So much for his pastor's dualistic, either/or view of calling.

Over the years since I've gotten a clearer sense that God is calls me to preach, teach, and write, so the job of a local church pastor is a pretty good way to live out that calling. But I know lots of people who are living out very faithful lives in all sorts of vocations, and frankly their example is probably more powerful than mine, because they serve in places people don't often expect to meet God.

I hope that people who are exploring what they want to do with their life will view the question of calling not as an either/or proposition, because doing so leads to a lot of anxiety about getting a particular question right or wrong, and the possibility that the wrong answer could have eternal consequences. If instead we believe that God calls all people to live faithfully wherever they are, then we can choose a vocation based not on whether it's right or wrong, but on how we can best live out our gifts and graces. In doing so we will find our life's calling.

Our Screwed Up Priorities

A bill currently before the Tennessee State Legislature would make "low-riding" your pants a crime. 

This is what the Tennessee Legislature feels is worth its time and energy.

Even though Tennessee has the tenth highest poverty rate in the nation.

Even though Tennessee has the third worst high school graduation rate in the nation.

Even though Tennessee has the eighteenth highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation.

Even though poor, rural communities in Tennessee have raging meth epidemics.

Even though Tennessee has some of the worst health care in the nation, including over 200,000 people having recently lost access to any kind of healthcare through cuts in the state health care system, Tenncare. We have no idea how many people have died as a result of these cuts, but some estimates put the number in the hundreds.

I could go on. I could cite lots of different studies with conflicting statistics, but the overwhelming consensus is that our state has major problems: problems so huge that only entities like state and national governments are equipped to handle them. And our elected representatives feel that the best use of their time and our tax dollars is to debate whether kids low-riding their pants like gangster rappers? Imitating silly fashions from rap videos is now an offense against the state?

Is it really any wonder that our state is so behind? Is it any wonder that our region of the country is a national joke?

Please pray for the state of Tennessee. We have a very long way to go.

March Madness!!!

The best sporting event of the year (except when the Titans are in the Superbowl) starts today. My alma matter, Butler University, plays LSU in the first game today. Everyone cheer for the Bulldogs, if for no other reason than President Obama picked them in his bracket.

My condolences to all the employers who are losing countless hours of productivity today and tomorrow. You can be comforted by the fact that your customers are as distracted as your employees.

The Latest "End Times" Scare

Warning: a rant is about to ensue:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It seems that due to one of the sillier accusations lobbed at Barack Obama during the campaign, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jones have been dragged out of the moth balls to once again repeat their tired interpretations of the apocalyptic texts of the Bible as if they were somehow new or relevant.

There are a number of ways that one could critique what these guys are saying. One way would be to point out how radically inconsistent is their application of scripture, especially since their entire argument rests on a "literal" (a concept we can and should spend some time deconstructing) reading of the Bible. One could also dismiss them entirely based on their extreme ignorance of any political categories. Please, someone ask them to define socialism!

But today I feel like picking their argument apart on the grounds that they're not saying anything that hasn't been said in regarding Dispensationalist eschatology (their particular brand of road-map for the end of the world) for at least thirty years.

That by itself isn't necessarily a bad thing because it could be seen as evidence of consistency and faithfulness to their doctrinal system. The problem, however, is that they keep pointing to current events as evidence that the Rapture (an interepretation of 1 Thessalonians 4:12 that was invented in the early nineteenth century by an Irishman named John Nelson Darby) is just around the corner.

Hal Lindsey has been doing this same kind of thing ever since he published The Late, Great Planet Earth over thirty years ago. LaHaye and Jenkins have taken advantage of that same fear and fascination with Nostradamus-type prophecies of calamity and leveraged it for immense profit. The activities of the Soviet Union were "evidence" that the Rapture would happen next Thursday. When the Soviet Union collapsed, that was "proof". So was the first Gulf War. So was Y2K. So is every incident of Arab-Israeli violence that comes up in the news.

(Sidenote: the fascination with Soviet-Arab relations stems from a very wacky reading of Ezekiel 38-39)

The latest excuse to dreg these guys up was the attempt to scare religious voters in 2008 by not to subtly suggesting that Barack Obama was the Antichrist. LaHaye and Jenkins wisely backed away from that particular accusation, but they weren't shy about selling their ideas or their many products.

I really like Rachel Maddow because she's pretty much the only pundit who is respectful of all viewpoints while being unapologetic about her own. She's a Rhodes Scholar and an Oxford PhD, so she knows that of which she speaks! Her interview with LaHaye and Jenkins is posted above.

It's easy to simply dismiss these guys as hucksters and mindless ideologues. They clearly are, but their book sales and a number of surveys have shown that a lot of people believe what they're saying, even though they don't bother to open the Bible and see if any of it makes sense (it doesn't).

We would all do well to remember that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' books are in the fiction section of the bookstore for a reason. If you want to know what's actually going on in the world, pick up a newspaper.

OK, my ranting is done. Everybody have a good Monday.

Why I Stay in the UMC

Jennifer Smith started a conversation on her blog where she gave her reasons for staying in the UMC. Like most young clergy, I have spent a significant amount of time wrestling with the question of whether to stay in a declining mainline denomination that has as many problems as we do. Ultimately I have decided to stick around, and a few of the reasons are listed below.

1. The UMC in my home. I mean this in several senses. I was baptized, raised, and confirmed in the UMC, and my parents have been active members of the same congregation for nearly twenty years. But theologically I also find myself at home in the UMC because our doctrinal standards always fall back on a very broad sense of God's grace.

2. The UMC is a big tent. United Methodists inhabit the entire spectrum of Protestant Christian theology. We have gung-ho environmentalists, crusaders for all kinds of social justice issues, people who openly wrestle with the divinity of Christ, and people who believe Adam and Eve rode their dinosaurs to church. While we don't agree on much, we do continue to create space for transformational dialogue, and we're the better for it.

3. Connectionalism. This one is a bit of a double edged sword. One of the downsides of a connectional system is an itenerant system that is unsustainable in its present form. But the upside is that pooling our money and other resources together allows us to accomplish more good than any individual church could do. Whenever a disaster occurs, churches are able to put together relief supplies and put them on a truck, knowing they will get to those who are most in need. About a third of every dollar we put in the collection plate goes around the world for various ministries. The whole is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

4. We're always trying hard to do better. Some folks wonder why I stick around in a denomination that has such regressive policies toward people of differing sexual orientations. But I can see how far we've come in empowering women in ministry (we still have a very long way to go on that one, though), and I see the changing attitudes in my generation, so I have faith that during my career we will be able to truly be welcoming to all of God's children, and stop discriminating based on traits we can't choose.

These are a few very broad reasons why I stay in the UMC. We're in some very tough days right now, but I believe our best days are ahead of us. God never stops speaking, and I'm hopeful that we'll listen and follow.

Agree? Disagree? Think of some things I left out? Discuss...

update- I got good news today. I will be commissioned as a Provisional Elder at Annual Conference in June. I was turned down two years ago, so being accepted feels very good. More details later.